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THE COYOTE 







Under 

Western Skies 

by 

OLAI ASLAGSSON/ 

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MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 
AUGSBURG PUBLISHING HOUSE 
19 2 3 




Copyright, 1923, by 

AUGSBURG PUBLISHING HOUSE 
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 



nr-c 20 wjJ 



©CU7 654011^ 


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CONTENTS 


THE COYOTE 

PAGE 

Chapter 1. Half Wolf—Half Fox . 7 

Chapter 2. A Dying Mother . 14 

Chapter 3. A Fight to the Death . 22 

Chapter 4. Liberty, Eating, Mating . 32 

Chapter 5. The Modern Esau . 40 

Chapter 6. The Catastrophe . 52 

Chapter 7. A Costly Shot . 60 

A TRAGEDY OF THE PRAIRIE 

Chapter 1. Mother Love . 73 

Chapter 2. To the Rescue . 81 

Chapter 3. The Finish . 88 

THE WILD HORSE 

Chapter 1. The Stallion and ”Circus-John” . 93 

Chapter 2. In the Pitfall . 100 

Chapter 3. Can it Be Tamedf . 105 

Chapter 4. The Fourth of July . Ill 

Chapter 5. Out Driving . 117 

Chapter 6. A Race with Death . 122 

Chapter 7. A Promise Redeemed . 134 

BESS 

Wiser Than Man . 141 

SHEEPDOGS 

Chapter 1. Sport and Midget . 153 

Chapter 2. Sport's Arch Enemy Satan . 158 

Chapter 3. A Death Struggle . 164 

Chapter 4. Jack and Sport on the Chase . 167 
























Chapter 5. The Tragic Fate of Midget . 174 

Chapter 6. Mysterious Disappearance of Sport . 182 

NERO 

Chapter 1. Bill, Dot, and Bob . 191 

Chapter 2. Bill on the Hunt for Coyotes . 198 

Chapter 3. The Sickness of Little Curly . 203 

Chapter 4. Nero . 210 

Chapter 5. Nero in the Role of Peacemaker . 221 

Chapter 6. Nero and the Rattlesnake . 225 

Chapter 7. Nero, the Young Coyote, and the Wolfhound 232 

Chapter 8. A Fight in the Dark . 237 

Chapter 9. The Lone Trapper . 240 

Chapter 10. Three to One . 242 

Chapter 11. Water Wanted . 250 

Chapter 12. Faithful Unto Death . 259 















THE COYOTE 


CHAPTER ONE 


HALF WOLF—HALF FOX 

COME call them wolves—prairie wolves—while 
^ others call them coyotes. For myself I prefer 
the latter name; it is the one by which I came to 
know them, and which I heard used by the people 
out west who did know them. The lonely prairies 
and the mountain fastnesses are now the only refuge 
of the coyote, since civilization is pushing forward 
from either shore. 

The name coyote is Mexican—or Spanish; but 
in the homeland of the coyotes this name has been 
so long in common use that to call them prairie 
wolves would merely cause confusion. 

Since my first acquaintance with the coyotes I 
have thought of them as hybrids, a cross between 
the wolf and the fox. I can think of no other de¬ 
scription which would give those who have never 
seen the animal, nor had experience of its cunning, 
a better idea of what it is like. 

In size the coyote is midway between the wolf 
and the fox. In color it is of a reddish yellow, with 
a suggestion of gray at certain seasons of the year. 
Its tail is more bushy than that of the wolf, and 
somewhat less bushy than that of the fox. The 
coyote has the narrow snout of the fox and the 
broad head of the wolf, with bright and beautiful 


8 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


eyes. It is a graceful and interesting beast, with 
a cunning which is equal to that of the fox in the 
struggle for existence. Tho not dangerous to man, 
or to the larger animals—such as horses and cattle 
—it will sometimes, when occasion demands it, fight 
with the foolhardiness of the wolf in defence of 
life and liberty. Such was my first impression of 
the coyote, and this is the picture of it still remain¬ 
ing with me. 

It is a day in spring; a day of sunshine and clear 
skies, with a hint of coming summer in the gentle 
breezes from the fields of snow up on the mountain 
sides. It is springtime on the strips of rolling 
prairie winding in among the mountain walls, and 
cut thru by river canons and countless ravines, which 
are dry except when occasionally filled by melting 
snows and heavy rains. 

Scattered over the prairie are seen low bushes, 
somewhat like heather, but less soft, and of a light 
green or grayish color. Between these bushes the 
light, sandy soil is bare; and all is somber and gray 
—in striking contrast to the moors of Norway, for 
instance, with their thick heather and rich brown 
color. The soil here in the west has a much lighter 
hue; so light, in fact, as seriously to tax the eyes 
when it is bathed in bright sunshine. The grass 
comes late and in little tufts, and is cured into hay 
by the July sun when the rains have ceased. 

The flowers are few; generally only those of the 
cactus are in evidence. And of birds there are only 
a few varieties of the grouse, and an occasional bird 
of prey sailing alone across the face of heaven and 


THE COYOTE 


9 


keeping a watchful eye for a possible victim—lonely 
as the prairies and the mountains among which they 
live. There are no little songbirds to break the 
somber monotony. 

The sagebrush—which might as well be called 
heather—sometimes hides a little rabbit, who takes 
an occasional little nibble at the bunch-grass or 
heather, its sensitive nose alive to every slightest 
change of the wind. This acute sense is the good 
guardian angel of many wild things. 

A few trees only are to be seen bordering the 
river banks. 

On this day of spring a coyote is seen trotting 
over the prairie, sniffing the air, and carefully ex¬ 
amining whatever it may chance to see. 

It is alone, and it goes leisurely; with frequent 
stops, indicating the wild animal’s avoidance of 
danger and its sharp craving for something to eat. 
It moves in about the same way as a dog would 
have done; but its frequent stops, the manner in 
which it sniffs at the slightest breath of air, the 
careful casting of the eyes to either side, these in¬ 
dicate either appetite or a troubled conscience. 

It may be doubted that the coyote has ever felt 
the sting of a bad conscience—at; least I have never 
heard of a case in point. But I have many times 
witnessed its ravenous appetite; how it revels in 
a carnival of gluttony whenever occasion offers. 

The day is nearly done. The sun hangs low on 
the western horizon, and the coyote has eaten 
nothing since early morn. 

Suddenly it stops and stands motionless as a 


10 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


statue. It must have seen something stir under one 
of the bushes over there. 

In the wild places, where the wild animals have 
the same color as their surroundings, some of them 
changing color with the seasons; it is only by moving 
that they betray their whereabouts. 

The coyote seems to know this and remains stand¬ 
ing still, looking over to the spot where something 
had stirred, waiting. For it knows also that if there 
is some living thing under the heather over there, 
a rabbit or a grouse, this living thing will soon move 
again. And the coyote likewise understands that 
its own movements also may be observed, and that 
the slightest stir will cause the thing under the 
bushes to stand still also and trust to watchful wait¬ 
ing. Thus the coyote remains standing, still as 
death, with only a gentle quivering of the nostrils. 
I'he beast of prey is about to change its tactics, 
when something stirs again in the same place. 

And then the coyote sees what it is; sees the long 
ears of a rabbit, thin and transparent in the slant¬ 
ing sunlight. 

Now is the time when care is necessary. The 
coyote remains standing perfectly still for yet some 
moments; until the rabbit stirs for the third time, 
turned away from its enemy, stretching its hind legs 
and reaching out after a bunch of grass. 

And in the earnest desire for enough to eat be¬ 
fore the sun goes down the coyote to some extent 
forgets its natural caution. The slight sound made 
by the wind stirring the heather enables the beast 


THE COYOTE 


It 


of prey to move around to one side in order to have 
the rabbit to the windward. 

Then the wily robber of the prairies begins to 
use its cunning to come nearer to its quarry. At 
first it walks erect, taking a stop now and then, 
each time the rabbit reaches out to nibble the 
heather. 

And how the mouth of the coyote does water, 
and its throat burn. How its bloodthirsty eyes do 
shine red and green in the light of the setting sun. 

Presently it cowers closer to the ground and 
crawls nearer, till the quarry is only ten or twelve 
feet away. Now one strong leap will do it. Not 
a muscle moves in the lean body; no sound breaks 
the silence; nothing gives the rabbit warning of the 
imminent danger. 

The cringing and waiting coyote looks like a yel¬ 
lowish piece of rock or like a little hillock covered 
with dead grass. The coyote is very cunning; it 
might long ago have risked the leap. 

What is it waiting for, anyhow? Don’t worry; 
it knows what it is doing. Like the experienced 
hunter, it waits for the right moment. There is no 
sportsman’s fever, no nervousness. Indeed, to the 
coyote this is no sport; it is the struggle for exist¬ 
ence. While these two are lying there—the weak 
and the strong—the sun sinks blood-red behind the 
western hills, its last beams mirrored in the glut¬ 
tonous eyes of the beast of prey. 

The silence then becomes still more dense. It 
is as if something has sickened and died. There is 
a gentle breath of wind over the prairie, carefully 


12 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


stirring the bunches of heather and the dry grass 
of last year. The sun is down, and the day draws 
its last breath. 

However, this gentle breath carries the scent of 
the coyote in the direction of the rabbit. There is 
a sudden change of position. The timid heart of 
the rabbit is paralyzed with fear. Is there yet time 
to escape, or is it too late? 

The long and muscular hinder limbs of the rabbit 
act instinctively and mechanically. Quick as light¬ 
ning there is a flash and a turn, and a little cloud 
of dust is kicked into the air; and a coyote with 
open jaws and cruel fangs drops down on the place 
—where the rabbit is not. 

The coyote turns and looks after the rabbit, now 
merely a gray streak moving over the prairie. The 
coyote knows well enough that the rabbit will stop, 
sit down on its haunches and look back at the enemy. 
But the coyote also knows that the rabbit can not 
w r ell be caught after being frightened and put to 
a test of speed. 

So the coyote licks its chops once or twice, casts 
a last hungry look after the disappearing streak of 
gray, and sneaks away. 

The light fades, and a chill comes into the air. 
As soon as darkness begins to settle down over the 
lonely wastes, the coyote begins to sing its peculiar 
evening song; a song which better than anything 
else fits the utter solitude of these wide plains. In 
the song there is an undertone of sadness unspeak¬ 
able. But should it cease it would be sorely missed 
by all who dwell on the prairies and love them with 


THE COYOTE 


13 


all emotions which they inspire. On rare occasions 
the coyote may bark or howl in the daytime; to 
desist from doing so at the coming of night would 
be as impossible as to stop the stars in their courses. 

The coyote is not gregarious like the wolf. Often 
it is alone. Often there are two, and sometimes as 
many as three or four together, but I have heard 
of none who has seen more than six in company. 
When the coyote barks a person not familiar with it 
will surely think that there must be three or four 
of the beasts; there are so many distinct tones. It 
always begins with some sharp and short barks, 
which then change into a piercing, long drawn howl. 
The tones overlap, the new beginning before the 
first is finished. 

Two or three coyotes often join forces and voices, 
sitting on a mound or hillock and howling their song 
w r hile day changes into night. It then sounds like 
a whole orchestra of infernal discord. 


CHAPTER TWO 


A DYING MOTHER 

' I V HE coyote is the most troublesome enemy of 
-*■ the cattlemen and ranchers. It is hated for its 
cunning; but all who are interested in wild animals 
must admire its wisdom. It has learnt many tricks 
in the endless fight with man. 

The coyote has in the course of the years cost 
the sheep ranchers enormous sums; so it is not to 
be wondered at that these get together and agree 
to offer a prize for the head of any coyote brought 
in, large or small, in addition to the bounty paid 
by the state. 

There are many who hunt the coyote in the win¬ 
ter season; for then they have little else to do. 
Most of the men are miners, patiently washing gold 
from the sandy banks of the rivers. The ice of win¬ 
ter stops their work. So they go out to hunt the 
coyote—a business that fits well into their free and 
easy mode of life. 

Then there are professional hunters with dogs 
and horses. The sheep herders also take part in the 
hunt, as do all others whose homes are on the 
prairies. 

That the coyote has been able to survive all this 
persecution will not surprise one acquainted with its 


THE COYOTE 


15 


cunning; but it is a miracle that the beasts are, 
seemingly at any rate, as numerous as ever. 

Its habitat is, however, not by far as large as it 
was. Pioneer settlers are encroaching on the coy¬ 
ote’s kingdom. It is driven farther into the fast¬ 
nesses and desert year by year, as are all the other 
wild animals. Fortunately for the coyote, there 
are, besides the mountains, great tracts which never 
will be fit for cultivation, and which always will re¬ 
main in possession of the wild beasts; a kingdom 
whose extent has been limited, but which is theirs 
for all time. 

Civilization and the wild things do not go well 
together. Even as the Indian has been compelled 
to give way before the white man of industry, so 
the animals also have been pushed back. Some 
species have been exterminated. Others have mi¬ 
grated northward to more peaceful haunts. But in 
spite of all, the coyote holds its own, seemingly with 
no diminution in numbers. It gives way in certain 
places; but fortunately there still are places in which 
it may live as before, where it may love and hate, 
and where it may sing its song when the blood-red 
sun has gone down behind the western mountains. 

* 

Out there they call him German Fritz; for, many 
years ago he came over from Germany. By pro¬ 
fession he is a miner. For many years he has been 
patiently hoping that some company would build a 
railroad up to the copper districts in the mountains 
where he has his claim. 


16 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


His copper mine is well enough, but the way to 
it is long and impassable. It will not pay to pack 
the copper out on mules; and the mining companies 
have time to wait until they can secure the mines 
for nothing. Optimistic as all miners must be in 
order to keep up their courage thru lifelong disap¬ 
pointments, German Fritz has waited year after 
year, hoping that the railroad might be built. 

He is a tall, lean man, old and gray; careless 
about his dress; and contrary to the general rule 
among men of his class, he has money in the bank. 
He now seldom does any work in his mine; but hav¬ 
ing lived so long out on the wild frontier, he can 
not remain quietly at home. So the spirit often 
moves him to take his rifle and roam the prairies. 
On occasion he also goes up into the mountains. 

On one of his summer excursions he sees a coyote 
with a prairie hen between its jaws. This is evidence 
that the coyote has its young cubs somewhere not 
far away. The coyote does not see Fritz, for he 
has been sitting for some time behind a little mound. 
He is so near to the coyote that had he wished it, 
he could easily have shot it dead. In fact he puts 
the rifle to his shoulder, but soon lowers it again. 
Will he not shoot? Perhaps his dear old heart 
will not permit him to destroy this life wantonly; 
or perhaps he is thinking of the innocent young 
cubs, who would then lose their mother and only 
support. 

No, it is not this that stays his hand. Old Fritz 
is an honorable man, to be sure, with no cruelty in 



EVENING SONG 





THE COYOTE 


17 


his nature, but he is not bothered with maudlin sen¬ 
timentality. 

These many years during which he has explored 
the mountain clefts, caught his fish, hunted and shot 
wild beasts, cooked his food and baked his bread, 
have robbed him of all sentimental nonsense. No, 
Fritz’s trained eyes tell him at once that the coyote 
is a mother; and he has a pleasant vision of himself 
collecting the bounty, not on one head, but on many. 
Thus it means to him more trophies of the chase and 
many money prizes instead of merely one. So now 
it is a question of discovering the whereabouts of 
the cubs; he can come tomorrow and dig them out. 

The mother coyote always has a warm hole in 
the ground for her young; tho she never, or very 
seldom, digs the hole herself. 

The coyote is not enthusiastically fond of hard 
work. It always prefers, if possible, to satisfy its 
wants without any such effort. It is only when the 
mother coyote has her young that she has a home 
down in some hole. Generally she has merely taken 
possession after driving out some weaker animal. 
In all other seasons, whether hot or cold, wet or 
dry, the coyote roams the plains. When the sun 
in the cold winter stands highest the coyote may 
steal an hour’s nap in some hollow, on some slope 
facing south, one from which a good look-out can 
be kept. 

Fritz does not this day find the coyote’s hole in 
the ground. He tries to follow the mother animal 
with his eyes; but the land is too uneven, and the 
color of the coyote soon makes it impossible to 


18 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


separate it from the tufts of heather. Fritz begins 
to be sorry that he did not shoot when the chance 
offered. The hole may be miles from here. Then 
he smiles as the thought occurs to him that a dog 
will be able to follow the fresh trail. 

Next day he mounts his nag and rides to the 
place, armed with pick and spade, and followed by 
a shaggy dog. The dog knows its business, and 
seems to be energetic enough to accomplish results. 

Fritz takes the dog to the spot where he had met 
the coyote. The dog would like to chase the rab¬ 
bits; but it is well trained, so that a mere threatening 
look causes it to obey orders. 

The dog is put on the scent of the coyote, follows 
it for some distance, stops short, runs about in a 
circle, follows it again, comes back, and then decides 
that the trail is an old one. 

Fritz, however, knows in which direction the 
coyote went; so he follows it, hoping to pick up a 
more fresh trail. 

And luck is with him, badly handicapped as he 
is in matching his poor wit against that of the 
coyote. He picks up a fresh scent which the dog 
can follow; and they soon stumble upon the mother 
coyote herself, busy with her dinner at the bottom 
of a dry river bed. 

They see each other at the same time. 

The coyote, confused perhaps by the unexpected 
sight, bounds up out of the river bed, instead of 
keeping in it—as they usually do—and starts to run 
across a broad, level plain, on which a fast horse 
may keep up with her. 


THE COYOTE 


19 


Then the chase begins. Horse and hound tear 
across the plain; the dog barking loudly, and the 
horse putting its whole mind to the matter of avoid¬ 
ing the spurs, which Fritz does not hesitate to dig 
into its sides. 

In the beginning the horse seems to gain on the 
fleeing coyote. But the ground becomes more 
broken, putting the horse at a disadvantage; and 
then the distance between the hunter and the hunted 
becomes greater and greater. 

Even then the dog is left far behind. The ground 
becomes still more broken. The horse is steadily 
losing; and Fritz, seeing that he can not get nearer 
to the coyote, lifts his rifle and shoots. 

The ball, fired from the back of a galloping horse, 
fails of its mark; and the coyote, who has been shot 
at before and knows what it means, zigzags her way 
till she is out of sight behind the nearest hill. 

Still the dog follows the scent across the broken 
ground, tho for a half hour nothing comes of it. 
The dog has no difficulty in keeping to the tracks 
of its quarry; and if the coyote runs to the hollow 
where she has her young, there will be no difficulty 
in finding them. 

But the coyote is a perfect fiend for cunning, and 
none knows this better than does Fritz. He is fully 
prepared to have the mother coyote now try to lead 
him away from her dearest possession. 

Suddenly she reappears on the top of a ridge 
stretching westward parallel with the cattle path 
which Fritz is following. 

She trots as unconcernedly as if ignorant of the 


20 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


existence of horse, dog, and man. She merely trots 
along for a matter of forty rods or so, keeping just 
so far ahead of the horse; and she does not as much 
as look behind. She makes a fine target against the 
clear, blue sky. 

There is a steep climb from the prairie to the top 
of the ridge; and Fritz understands that his horse 
can not make it. But how had the coyote managed 
to put the dog off the scent? The dog is running 
with its nose to the ground, without looking up, and 
utterly unconscious of the fact that the coyote is 
up on the ridge near by—so near that she can take 
note of all its movements. 

Fritz now at once sees the hopelessness of con¬ 
tinuing this chase. He jerks his horse up, takes 
careful aim and shoots. The sharp report breaks 
the silence of the prairie. In the same moment the 
coyote makes a great jump, and then falls and lies 
still as tho dead. 

When they reach the place she is not there, but 
a pool of blood tells the story; no doubt she has 
been mortally wounded. 

It now is an easy matter to follow her path, 
marked out as it is by the heart’s blood of a dying 
mother. And Fritz knows that in these circum¬ 
stances she will instinctively try to reach her cubs, 
and will thus reveal their hiding place. In her final 
agony she will forget her cunning; which she has 
so often shown in leading the enemy away from 
her young. 

At last Fritz finds her outside of her burrow 


THE COYOTE 


21 


with her cubs about her. She is lying stretched out 
on the ground, and is dead. 

Fritz stops short and looks at the young cubs, 
touched by their helplessness, by the manner in 
which they are trying to wake up their sleeping 
mother. There are five of them. They pull at her, 
make piping sounds with their thin voices, sniff at 
her, lick her face lovingly, sit with their heads 
turned half away as if in deep thought. They 
wonder why mother does not stir, why she bleeds, 
and why she had brought them no food. 

Then they are afraid of the horse, now nibbling 
at the grass; and they seek safety down in the bur¬ 
row. 

Pick and spade now come into use; and after an 
hour’s work Fritz has reached the bottom of the 
hole, where the young coyotes are huddled together 
helpless with fear. 

The old miner sees how they try to shut out the 
danger by closing their eyes to it. He thinks of 
how they tried to wake up the mother he had killed, 
and his heart is filled with pity. He can not kill 
them as he had intended. He will take them home 
with him. Sold alive they may bring him more 
money. 


CHAPTER THREE 


A FIGHT TO THE DEATH 


WO of the young coyotes are given a home in 



**“ the back yard of a hotel in the town. They are 
a he and a she, one big and one little. And the he 
is the little one, and also the one that seems to 
be best satisfied. 

It is said that it takes five generations to produce 
a tame coyote. One may understand, then, how 
these two prisoners resent being cooped up in that 
back yard. Every movement, their foolish efforts 
to get loose, are stopped by means of cruel chains. 
In the beginning it is awfully trying. People come 
to look at them, and jerk them up sharp when they 
sneak away as far as the chains will allow. There 
is nothing which these two coyotes hate like the 
presence and the curiosity of human beings. 

During the first few days they can not be induced 
to eat. They whine piteously all the time; and 
all night long may be heard the rattling of their 
chains. This continues for some days; forward and 
back, as far as the chains permit. 

Once in a while they stop to swallow a mouthful 
of water, when the heat is trying. But they stand 
still only a moment; while the fine, brown eyes look 
to either side, sad and timid. Sometimes they start 


THE COYOTE 


23 


up nervously without cause, and then continue to 
trot back and forth. 

The little male cub is the first to eat of the food 
set before them by the cook of the hotel. He is 
so famished that the food tastes good, tho he never 
before has tasted just that kind of meat. But the 
female, who is larger and more fierce, tries to fly 
at the cook, with wild hatred flashing from her 
usually innocent looking eyes. Had the chain al¬ 
lowed it, she would have buried her fangs in him. 
But then she sneaks away and is ashamed. 

After a time the young coyotes become more 
reconciled to man and to their life in the hotel yard. 
The male cub sometimes even shows that he longs 
for the coming of the cook; and he shows the coy¬ 
ote’s sober joy at the appearance of food. She, on 
the other hand, remains callous to every offer of 
friendship. She begs to be excused from any nearer 
acquaintance, and nurses her natural hatred toward 
her captors. 

This inability to accommodate herself to existing 
circumstances finally causes her death. 

On a certain bright day the cook, as usual, brings 
them their dinner; when the fierce female buries her 
small fangs in his hand. 

The cook kicks her little body against the wall 
of the woodshed, where it falls down with a loud 
rattling of the chain; but without any whining, tho 
one hind leg was broken. Before night she was 
shot and put out of her misery. 

It was on this very day that I first made the ac¬ 
quaintance of the surviving cub. The short story of 


24 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


his life was told me by Fritz himself over a glass 
of beer in the barroom of the hotel. 

The cub was too young to understand what had 
happened to his sister; and he let even a stranger 
like myself gently stroke his fur. 

He is dear and innocent in his playfulness, cavort¬ 
ing like a young puppy on his clumsy legs. It is a 
fine, narrow head, which he holds gracefully aslant, 
and w r hich, with the clear brown eyes, are among 
his racial distinctions. 

I stopped but a few days in the town, until I 
found work; but during those days I was a diligent 
visitor of the coyote. My work will take me away; 
and it will be months before I see the young cub 
again. 

When I came back to the town the winter season 
was on us. Storms swept over the prairies, and at 
times there was a heavy fall of snow. 

The young coyote, now obeying the name King, 
is almost full grown; and it has achieved the digni¬ 
fied bearing which it lacked when a young cub. Its 
whole nature seems to have undergone a radical 
change. It no longer cringes and whines. It goes 
about with a proud bearing and fearless eyes, all 
the time pulling hard at the hated chain—which it 
had come to hate more and more fiercely and had 
polished and dented with its teeth during the long 
nights, when raging with anger it had heard the 
howling of its brethren roaming free over the 
prairies. 

During the daytime the chained coyote was more 
quiet. It lay outside of its kennel even in the cold- 


THE COYOTE 


25 


est weather, looking out over the prairie—this free 
prairie which is calling to it, but of which man has 
robbed it. 

To look at King now none could think that he 
was the same coyote who had cringed and whimp¬ 
ered there as a cub, wagging his tail like a puppy 
and satisfied with his surroundings. 

He has changed surprisingly; is grown large, 
larger than most coyotes, and has acquired all that 
fierceness which he had not had a chance to learn 
of his mother. 

A couple of dogs had seemed to King to be un¬ 
duly familiar, and they had paid the forfeit of their 
rashness with their lives. And of course King on 
occasion helped himself to the toothsome chickens 
and ducks that came too near. 

“He will be a devil when he is a few months 
older,” says the admiring Fritz. 

As the winter advances King chafes more and 
more at being a prisoner. When the snow is deep¬ 
est and the weather coldest, and the coyotes are 
the more fearless in approaching the little prairie 
town, half buried under its snowy blanket, then 
King’s answering call to his brethren—his mighty 
vow-vow-vow-vow-o-o-o-u-u-u—was a thing to drive 
the people to drink. 

There is talk of putting him out of the way; but 
nothing is done in the matter, until King one day 
injures a little girl, who had ventured too near. 

This is too much, and the owner is ordered to 
do away with the nuisance. 

Now it happens that in this same town there is a 


26 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


bulldog, which because of evidence of an uncon¬ 
trollable temper also has been condemned either to 
death or to life imprisonment in chains. 

Now, a bulldog and a coyote together in some 
pen from which they can not escape should be able 
to furnish interesting entertainment. Both of these 
are to die anyhow; so why not have some fun out 
of it? The matter is discussed, and the day agreed 
on for this sporting event. 

The day arrived. I stood at the hotel window, 
looking at the coyote, now to fight to the finish. My 
heart is with him, and has been with him from the 
first day of my making his acquaintance. 

It is a dark winter day with snow-laden air, tho 
no snow is falling; a day much like one some years 
ago, on which I saw a man hanged. Such a day 
is not easily forgotten; and as I stand there looking 
thru the gray air at the doomed coyote, I feel the 
same old sinking of the heart within me. 

In a few hours, perhaps, that fine fur will be 
covered with smears of blood; the light will have 
gone out of the clear eyes; the lithe body will be a 
lifeless clod, and soon become a rotting carcass. 
The thought oppresses me. Had it been in my 
power to do it I would not have hesitated to set 
the coyote free. It did not seem right to me to pit 
this young and untried beast against the bulldog, 
an experienced old fighter. 

For the coyote has all his life been fastened to 
the chain. He has never been given a chance to 
strengthen his lungs by a run over the hills; and 


THE COYOTE 


27 


good lungs is what he will especially need in the 
fight before him. 

And now the time is come. The battle ground 
is the smallest of the many pens in which the cattle 
are sorted before being sent east each fall to the 
cities. 

The time set is the afternoon. The bulldog is the 
first to put in an appearance. It is not a very large 
beast; but its fierce eyes and its nasty mouth with 
the cruel nether lip and its two great fangs—the 
whole expression and build show what the bulldog 
may be expected to do in a fight to the death. 

Then King is brought and let loose into the pen. 
The dog greets him with a deep, hoarse growl; 
while the coyote remains standing erect and proud 
before the door, which is closed behind him. He 
looks his enemy in the eye without flinching. The 
ring of spectators maintain absolute silence. My 
heart is fairly pounding against my ribs. 

The dog comes nearer, growling and with the 
lips turned back to expose the nasty fangs. 

Now the coyote also moves. He walks on stiff 
legs close to the wall, shows his teeth and snarls. 

These two beasts use quite different fighting 
tactics. A bulldog crawls rather than walks; and 
when it has laid hold on the enemy it simply holds 
fast without any thought of anything else. A coy¬ 
ote goes to it in a more active way. It snaps like 
the wolf, inflicts wounds, moves warily, and defends 
itself with its teeth. 

The men begin to make bets. Most of them 
favor the dog. I can not and will not bet; I am 


28 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


too much occupied with looking on and wishing of 
all my soul that something may happen to keep my 
favorite free of the bulldog’s iron jaw. The dog 
is in the mean time infuriated more and more by the 
cries of the spectators. Its eyes shine with a green¬ 
ish light, and its low growl is like distant thunder. 
The coyote must be frightened by all these people 
and their shouting, but he does not show it. He 
moves proudly as one sure of himself, on legs like 
steel springs, always with the two bright eyes fixed 
on the enemy. The fighters now come nearer to¬ 
gether. The dog manoeuvers the coyote into a cor¬ 
ner and comes at him with a crawling but quick mo¬ 
tion. 

My prayers go up: Ye powers above, keep the 
coyote free of those fangs. In the same instant 
the coyote growls sharply and shoots like a yellow 
streak over the dog, leaving a bloody gash along 
its white back. 

The dog becomes still more furiously angry. It 
twists and turns with unexpected speed, and goes to 
the attack furiously and blindly. But this second 
onslaught like the first proved but a costly failure. 
There is a growl, a hissing sound, a sharp coming 
together of the dog’s teeth, a leaping yellow body 
shooting over the back of the dog, leaving another 
deep scratch. This is repeated several times. The 
spectators cry out in sympathy for one or the other 
of the two fighters. The battle is marked by much 
growling and noise. The dog has smeared the 
boards with its blood and is now frothing at the 
mouth. 


THE COYOTE 


29 


My heart is fairly dancing with admiration of 
my favorite; when suddenly comes the fearsome 
thought: How long will the coyote be able to stand 
the strain? 

It is a fight to the finish. Will King manage to 
keep clear of those horrible fangs till the dog has 
been weakened thru loss of blood? 

I don’t know. I can only sit and hope for the 
best, while the gruesome fight goes on. In its fury 
the dog becomes quicker to attack. The coyote 
leaps, growls, and bites, and continues to keep clear 
of the cruel fangs. 

Then something happens. 

The pen is built of narrow timbers, solid at the 
corners only; so that there is an open space equal 
to their thickness between each pair of scantlings 
—something like three or four inches. 

The walls were about eight feet high. We in¬ 
terested spectators had built a sort of platform half 
way up by planting some planks with their ends 
stuck into one of the openings between the timbers. 
Thus our weight rested on the timber on which the 
planks lie; and as the pen is old, many of the tim¬ 
bers are not so sound as they have been. 

The two fighters are at each other in the middle 
of the enclosure. For the first time the coyote has 
not been able to keep clear of the enemy. Never 
having exercised beyond the length of a chain, the 
coyote could no longer stand up against the furious 
attack of the trained dog. 

The dog is on top, trying again and again with¬ 
out success to fasten its fangs in the squirming 


30 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


coyote. Its mighty bulldog jaws open and shut, and 
I am suffering torture. 

For some seconds the cruel fangs strike only the 
sharp teeth of the coyote, or a barbed leather collar 
which fortunately still encircles his neck. 

The coyote struggles desperately to get up on 
his feet; but his bleeding enemy is too heavy and 
too well trained. 

Then it is that the thing happens. 

Just as the situation seemed most hopeless, fate 
comes to the assistance of the coyote. One of the 
timbers of the pen gives way, the platform of planks 
falls down, and the spectators curse and shout. 

The noise is such that even the furious dog ceases 
its efforts for a moment; and this moment is long 
enough to let the coyote spring to his feet and leap 
thru the opening made by the broken timber, over 
the heads of us, who have not as yet had time to 
scramble to our feet after the fall. 

The dog acts as tho it would follow in chase, but 
at once sees the hopelessness of it and gives it up. 

For the first time in his life King has the chance, 
and he puts his heart into his heels and fairly flies 
over the prairie. He is now free of all that smells 
of man, excepting for a strong leathern collar with 
sharp iron barbs. 

He shows no hesitation in steering his course. 
He makes straight for the hill country to the 
south, from which he had so often while in chains 
heard the nightly call of his fellows, and toward 
which his eyes had been directed all the day with the 
longing of the wild animal for liberty. 


THE COYOTE 


31 


Now we all stand there looking after the fleeing 
coyote. Others may have felt differently; I for my 
part felt gloriously happy and grateful. 

The air still is gray and heavy with snow. The 
naked slopes are a depressing sight; and so is also 
the sight of the running coyote, now about to have 
his first experience of real life. 


CHAPTER FOUR 


LIBERTY, EATING, AND MATING 

A NEW life now begins for the coyote. He keeps 
going all the first day, tho his limbs are sore 
from the fight with the dog. He is famished, but 
has no experience in providing himself with food. 
And as if even nature were determined to make his 
first taste of liberty bitter to him, it begins to snow. 

Again and again he stops, sometimes because he 
is dead tired, sometimes to get the direction of the 
wind, and sometimes merely as having no definite 
destination. Occasionally, when he hears the howl 
of another coyote from far away, he stops long 
enough to give an answering call. Then he again 
trots on and on, farther from that which he dreads 
most of all: Man. 

Toward morning the air clears. The stars 
twinkle in the dark heavens, and the wind dies. But 
the coyote continues his slow trot, now almost auto¬ 
matically, up hill and down, seemingly world with¬ 
out end. 

Once he tries to catch a rabbit, but makes a fail¬ 
ure of it. Then right on the top of a sharp ridge 
he stumbles on a flock of sheep, lying close around 
the covered wagon in which the herder has his 
home. The mouth of the coyote waters; never in 
his life has he seen so much food at one time. 




THE COYOTE 


33 


He runs half way round them, to the place where 
the brush is most dense, and where he faces what 
little breeze there is. 

How good it smells, and how tempting it is. But 
with the gentle wind there comes to him another 
scent, one which he knows and dreads: the scent of 
man and dog. 

He licks his chops once or twice, and then goes 
his way as noiselessly as he came. 

The gray dawn appears in the east, the light of 
the stars goes out, and the mountain tops with their 
caps of snow are faintly marked against the skies. 

A coyote begins its morning song somewhere 
toward the dawn. There is an answer from far 
away and another near by. Then from every side 
is heard the traditional song, the weird song of the 
wild and lonely plains—the mysterious musical bond 
between the coyote and the prairies. 

Where would the coyote be without these miles 
of rolling ground? And what would the prairies 
and the mountains be without the song of the coy¬ 
ote, which gives them this peculiar wild charm, this 
irresistible charm of solitude? 

Now and again the runaway stops and listens; 
sometimes he gives an answering howl. But this 
does not have the wild abandon heard in the song 
with which the coyotes greet the coming day, nor 
the mockery in their call from the hills down to the 
sheep-herders below them. 

Usually the song of the coyotes ceases when the 
sun rises; tho sometimes it may be heard off and on 
all day, especially when the skies are murky. 


34 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


Our young runaway friend is now both tired and 
hungry. Faint as he feels, the warmth of the sun is 
comforting. He wants a place to rest and sleep. 
But his hunger tortures him. While chained in 
that back yard he was fed three times a day; and 
now it is a woefully long time since the last meal. 

His keen sense of smell still tells him where those 
sheep are; and before he has time to think better 
of it, he is on his way toward them. He proceeds 
with caution, with the wild animal’s sharp sense of 
direction, always against the wind. The scent grows 
stronger. And as he comes all the time nearer the 
source of it his heart is in a tremble; for his nose 
tells him that there is a man not far away. 

He goes cautiously forward, till he is hidden in 
the heather on a ridge, from which he can see all 
those sheep grazing in the valley. 

He sees also the man and the dog. Then King 
begins his first chase for the means of existence. 
His education in this matter has been neglected, but 
unerring instinct tells him just what to do. And he 
obeys it, till he finds himself but thirty or forty 
feet away from the sheep he has picked out for his 
meal; and without having as yet been seen. 

He prepares for the spring, but hesitates, as not 
knowing exactly what will come of it. He has a 
.sort of stage-fright. The sheep-herder is in plain 
sight, but far away, and the dog also can be seen. 

The particular sheep which the coyote has chosen 
for his own comes toward him with no thought of 
danger, its head all the time down under the bushes 
hunting for the sparse fodder. 


THE COYOTE 


35 


King stands tense and waiting. Without his 
knowing it, of course, his inherited instinct tells him 
that, being in color like his surroundings, he will 
not be seen while he does not move. 

Now the sheep is close by and puts its head down 
into the heather. Then suddenly King takes heart 
and springs onto the back of the sheep, which with 
a frightened bawl starts running for its life with 
the coyote on its back. 

A sheep always follows its leader if it has one, 
unless driven into such a panic of fright that it runs 
away from its fellows. All the sheep are standing 
with their heads under the bushes; but as soon as 
the nearest one hears one of the number running 
away it also starts off without taking the trouble to 
ask the reason for it. The next ones at once fol¬ 
low suit, and then the next on either side, until half 
of the whole flock are headed wildly for some com¬ 
mon goal. 

The herder soon sees what is doing; he sees the 
coyote, that will not let go his hold on the fleeing 
mutton. This interests the coyote so keenly that 
everything else is forgotten. 

But then he hears the bark of the dog, and then 
a sharp report; and in the same instant something 
whizzes by his nose, so that he loses his hold and 
falls off the sheep’s back so hard that it takes his 
breath away. Then there is another report, and 
still another; and each time something whizzes by 
too close for comfort. 

The coyote is up with a bound, and intuitively 


36 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


adopts the old trick of his kind, following a sharp 
zigzag course in running away from the rifle. 

King had heard gunshots before this, but then 
he was chained. This is the first time that the mean¬ 
ing of these sharp reports dawns on him. And he 
never forgets it. All the forenoon he roams the 
plain without finding anything to eat. Several times 
he sees large flocks of sheep, but his experience of 
the morning causes him to fight shy of them. 

In the middle of the day he steals a short nap. 
And not long after that he catches a rabbit down in 
the bushes by a dry river bed. This food gives 
him new courage and again fills him with the joy of 
life. When the sun sinks low that evening, and the 
shadows grow long over the prairie, and his fellows 
of the coyote breed again sing their discordant 
notes, he answers them with all the strength of his 
lungs. 

During the second night King is more lucky than 
he was the first night. Under protection of the 
darkness, but still with the greatest caution—for 
he does not yet know that the darkness is a greater 
handicap to man than to the coyote—he crawls 
close to some sleeping sheep, and kills one of them 
before it has time to get up. 

To begin with he is not especially courageous. 
The nearest sheep start to run; and the sound of 
their feet against the frozen ground makes him beat 
a retreat. The herder also has caught the sound 
and knows what it means. The night is pitch black, 
so that the herder can see nothing; but tho he does 


THE COYOTE 


37 


not expect results, he takes his rifle on a venture and 
fires a shot at random into the darkness. 

The coyote is frightened and runs, shaping a zig¬ 
zag course as before; but when the report which had 
startled him so is not repeated, he soon stops, more 
from surprise than from any strong feeling of cour¬ 
age. And when another coyote not far away howls 
in mockery, King takes heart and answers, and then 
crawls nearer to the dead sheep. 

Soon all is still again. He eats his fill and goes 
his way. But after that night he was never again 
afraid of a gunshot into the darkness. 

In the morning the herder poisons what is left 
of the carcass. 

The following night King comes back, to be sure; 
but he is warned by the suspicious smell of the 
poison and does not touch the carrion. His nose 
also warns him that there is a man near by; and his 
dread of everything smelling of man is so great 
that in spite of his hunger he trots off to look for 
food in some other place. So he preserves his life 
this day also; and as the time goes by he learns bet¬ 
ter and better to obtain food. There is an abundance 
of prairie chickens and rabbits and rodents; and 
especially of sheep. And so the winter goes, and 
the spring finds him still alive. 

By the time that the snow melted early in the 
spring our coyote had grown to be larger than most 
of his kind. He has kept by himself, cautiously 
avoiding all living things, even those of his own 
kind. But in the springtime the soul of nature is 


38 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


awakened; and he feels for the first time a certain 
want, a longing for companionship. 

One evening when the sun goes down, and he hears 
the familiar call of another coyote, he gives a full- 
throated answer and walks toward the place from 
which the call has come. 

Once in a while he stands still and barks. The 
answer comes, and he goes on, until he suddenly 
stops short at the foot of a ridge. Up on the top 
of it another coyote is silhouetted against the eve¬ 
ning sky. Carefully he draws near, keeping always 
down the wind. 

When about ten feet apart they stop, both of 
them stiff-legged, with heads held tense, only the 
nostrils moving. Thus they remain some time; until 
the other coyote moves half around to catch the 
scent. Then both wag their tails, come nearer and 
still nearer, sniff at each other, and are friends. 
However, there is one thing which the strange coy¬ 
ote looks at and smells of with some suspicion: the 
leather collar which the other has around his neck. 

The two friends now roam the prairie together 
for some days. 

King had been longing for companionship and 
had now found it. But strangely enough, the long¬ 
ing is not satisfied;— not so strange after all. For 
this is springtime, the season of mating, and these 
two coyotes are both of the same sex. 

They keep together nevertheless. In the eve¬ 
nings they sit on a knoll and sing in unison their 
lovelorn duets. 

One evening after sundown, when the echo of 


THE COYOTE 


39 


their song had ceased, another and smaller coyote 
is seen to approach them. It stops at some little 
distance and sniffs the still air. They do the same, 
standing erect and tense. Then the new coyote 
comes close to them. After the introduction, King 
and h’.s comrade seem to grow a little cool toward 
each other, and keep themselves one on either side 
of the newcomer. For it is a female, and spring¬ 
time is in their blood. 

She it is for whom King has been longing for a 
time; and for this he has been sending his call out 
into the night as never before. 

But the coolness between King and his comrade 
now soon becomes active enmity. 

They look askance at each other with hate in 
their eyes whenever one of them comes too near 
her; they snarl and show their teeth. Then one day 
they fight. Both are big and strong, and for a long 
time they seem to be very evenly matched. But 
King has his youth to pit against the other’s greater 
experience, and comes out of it as the victor; and 
goes his way, bloody and satisfied, in company with 
the female who from now on is his mate. 


CHAPTER FIVE 


THE MODERN ESAU 

S PRING is here; the sun already rides high in 
the heavens, and a gentle breeze blows out of 
the West. 

It is in April or May that the lambs come. The 
care of sheep happened to be my business at the 
time, and I had been hired by a rancher for the 
lambing season. The sheep were kept at a place 
only a few miles from the town from which King 
had run away. 

It is one of the first days in May. The lambs 
have not put in an appearance, but all of us are 
busy with the preparations. I have in the morning 
been down to the river and cut armfuls of willow 
saplings, to which we fasten flags of red cloth. 
These are to be planted in the earth around the 
ewes with the newborn lambs to keep the coyotes 
away in the night. Another precaution is the burn¬ 
ing of some gunpowder. All experienced coyotes 
are acquainted with it and try to keep at a distance 
from it. 

The following day we expect the first lambs. In 
the wagon of the sheep-herder there is room for 
only one person; so the rest of us made our beds 
under the open sky. 

In the gray dawn I put my head out from under 


THE COYOTE 


41 


the piece of canvas protecting my blankets. The 
prairies were covered with new snow. Cold and 
snow are the worst things of all during the lambing 
season; so this does not look very promising. 

It is an uncomfortable morning. The cold causes 
my teeth to beat the devil’s tattoo; till I have put 
on enough clothes, so that I can decently run over 
to the wagon and get the fire started in our oven. 

The heavens are gray and depressing, with the 
wind singing a sad dirge over the prairie; a few 
snowflakes are still falling aslant to the ground. 
Later on the air becomes somewhat warmer, the 
wind veers around more to the south, and the snow¬ 
flakes no longer fall; but the same heaviness hangs 
in the air. 

And then the lambs begin to come, one here and 
one there; and in the evening, when we had collected 
the mothers into a company by themselves, we 
count twenty lambs. A few are, of course, better 
cared for than many. 

Late in the afternoon the foreman says to me: 
“You will go out and give them the care needed for 
the night.” And hearing the howl of a coyote from 
far away among the hills he adds: “See to it that 
those beasts do not get them.” 

I take an armful of those flagstaffs, and go out 
and plant them around the new mothers. The flags 
flutter noisily in the evening wind. I light a fire and 
go away, feeling sure that this and the flags will 
keep the coyotes at a distance. 

That night there are many lambs born. We are 
up early. I go over to take a look at those that had 


42 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


come yesterday. All are there, inside of the circle 
of those flags, but dead; their throats torn by sharp 
teeth and their hearts torn out. 

This was not exactly encouraging to the foreman; 
nor to me. These lambkins had in a way been en¬ 
trusted to my care. “The coyote is fierce this year,” 
says the boss; “we must be very careful.” We are; 
but in spite of it many other lambs meet the same 
fate. 

All of us have rifles; and we shoot whenever we 
see a coyote, no matter how far away it may be. 

When a lamb is born, and the mother is fright¬ 
ened before she has a chance to smell of it, she does 
not afterward know it as her own. Such lambs die, 
in many cases, from want of nourishment. Those 
that are gifted with more sense save themselves by 
stealing a chance at the udder of some other accom¬ 
modating wetnurse, generally when her lamb is simi¬ 
larly engaged on the other side. 

Usually, however, these motherless ones are un¬ 
derfed as compared with those that get their regular 
supply of mother’s milk. 

There may in a flock of sheep be many such 
starving lambs, and at the same time a number of 
ewes with full udders, but no lamb. 

To some extent this trouble may be remedied in 
this wise: When a lamb dies the skin may be taken 
off and fitted onto one of the motherless ones, like 
a coat with holes for the feet and tail and head. 
The ewe that has lost her lamb will, when it is 
brought to her, smell the skin of her offspring and 
at once adopt the motherless lamb. In a day or 


THE COYOTE 


43 


two the coat may be taken off. If the weather 
is warm it must be done, else the flies will fill it with 
maggots. 

I did this one day with a little shivering and hun¬ 
gry lambkin. I pitied it so much, for it was so lit¬ 
tle; and I had seen it again and again driven away 
by mothers without bowels of mercy, when its in¬ 
stinct urged it to take nourishment. Then the poor 
little thing stands there alone among the many, de¬ 
serted and helpless, bleating for the mother that 
will not come and give it food and warmth. 

So I covered it with the fleecy coat of another 
and found a mother for it. After that I naturally 
was specially interested in this particular lamb. It 
thrived so well that I could see the difference from 
day to day, and it was as lively as any of the lambs. 
I used to pick it up and make a pet of it whenever 
I had the time. 

The coat is taken off; and the little lamb knows 
me so well that it comes to me, if the dog is not 
near. The mother ewe looks on with surprise. 

The coyotes are so attentive that we must use 
every possible means to keep them at a safe distance. 
I am compelled to bring my blankets and to sleep 
outdoors among the sheep. 

One morning I am awakened by some noise 
among them. I spring to my feet, and see two 
coyotes scattering the frightened sheep in all direc¬ 
tions. Several lambs are lying dead where they 
went to rest last night, and among them my little 
pet. 

And by the light of the sun, now just sending its 


44 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


first rays out over the plain, I see that one of the 
two murderers wears a shining collar. 

This is the first time I have seen King since his 
escape; tho I had heard news of him several times. 
He was so easily recognized by that collar. 

It is a two days’ journey to the grazing grounds 
for the summer up among the mountains. The 
coyotes migrate to the same place at the same time; 
for mutton is their favorite food and most easily 
procured. As soon as the lambs are big enough to 
walk so far we go to the mountain pastures. 

Early in the morning after our setting out King 
and hi$ mate kill two lambs, while I am sitting on 
my horse at some distance and seeing them do it. 
When we stop at our wagon for lunch I mention this 
matter to the other men; and the foreman swears 
that he has had enough of this brute, and is deter¬ 
mined to make an end of it. 

But to make an end of King is something more 
easily said than done. When we are settled among 
the mountains, King and his mate are there also; 
having there found a good place in which to take 
possession of a burrow for their own expected cubs. 

I saw them several times, but never near; and 
many other herders also saw them. King had now 
grown so large as to be easily known even when so 
far away that the collar could not be seen. 

Up here I have no chance to sleep in the wagon. 
It stands at the watering place, where all the sheep 
spend the warm hours of the day. Not till the 
cool of the afternoon do the sheep begin to eat their 
fill for the night. This meal lasts till dark. When 


THE COYOTE 


45 


they can eat no more they lie down. And where 
they lie down, I also must take my rest; and nearly 
every night I must get up to drive the coyotes away. 

It is pure pleasure to sleep out here when the 
weather is fine, and the moon or the stars shine 
down from the beautiful vault of heaven. But when 
the nights are wet and stormy, and I must spend one 
or two weary hours fighting the coyotes off, the 
poetry of this lonely life among the mountains is 
changed into the most tiresome prose. 

The dog is the herder’s one great friend during 
the long days and nights; and mine is a very good 
one. It has taught me more than one thing about 
the herding of sheep. But capable as it is as a sheep¬ 
dog, it is worth nothing against the coyotes. Prob¬ 
ably it has at some time experienced that a set-to 
with a coyote is no joke. 

Still, in daytime the dog is not so bad a helper. 
It will then at least make a dash after the coyotes 
as long as these run away; but when the coyote 
stops or turns, Sport comes home. There will be 
no argument, no fight. And when the dog is with 
me in the dark, and the coyotes howl near us, it will 
insist on trying to hide between my legs. 

One glorious day I am lying under a tree up on 
a ridge, deeply interested in a book. Sport lies 
stretched out at my side, with eyes half closed, en¬ 
tirely satisfied with life and with himself. Three 
thousand sheep are scattered over the great plain. 
They stand nearly motionless in the heat of the day, 
like countless white spots dotting the green carpet. 
Suddenly I notice that the sheep far over to the 


46 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


other side begin to huddle close together. And by 
straining my eyes I can just see that a little and a 
large coyote are herding and holding them there, 
running as it were in the arc of a wide circle, ex¬ 
actly as a trained dog does in bringing the scattered 
sheep together. I see at once that it is King and his 
mate, out to provide themselves with dinner, and 
that they are runnning in that way only to pick out 
the very best to be had in this great abundance of 
food. 

I have the gun, but I know that I can not hit the 
mark from this distance. Besides, I want to have 
some fun with the dog. In a calm voice I call to 
Sport. He opens his eyes and looks sidewise at me 
without moving. “Sport,” I say again; “go around 
there behind them, not too near.” And I motioned 
with the right arm to show him which way to take. 
He does not relish the job. He gets up slowly and 
trots off in most leisurely fashion with his tongue 
out as far as it will go. He soon stops short and 
looks at me, plainly hoping that I will call him back. 
But I signal to him again to go on; and he does it in 
a lazy way, showing that his heart is not in it. He 
stops several times to give me a chance to counter¬ 
mand the order which he so much dislikes; but I 
sternly command him to go on. 

I follow closely the movements of the dog, his 
lazy trot never once breaking into a run. I can 
picture to myself his half-closed eyes and his dull 
interest in the work before him. 

Then the scene suddenly changes. The coyotes 
are coming right toward Sport, while he is half 


THE COYOTE 


47 


asleep. He does not see them before they are close 
by. He stops for a tenth of a second, and then 
comes flying back, leaping over the hillocks of 
heather between which he had made his slow way. 
I see his tears flowing when he comes back to me. 
He understands that I have merely wanted to try 
him out; and he is highly offended, and lies down, 
and refuses to look at me. 

In the meantime King and his mate continue do¬ 
ing havoc among the sheep; and I do not doubt that, 
later on, when their young cubs have arrived, the 
whole family will live entirely at the expense of our 
sheepowner. 

The coyote differs from the wolf in this, that as 
a rule the coyote does not kill more sheep than it 
wants for food. But the present great abundance 
causes it to change its custom, and makes it more 
of a gourmand; for many a morning I find several 
lambs lying close together with their throats cut and 
the hearts torn out. 

It does not seem so bad after all, as long as they 
kill only what they devour. I excuse them, for they 
interest me; and I know that such is their nature. 
But this wholesale slaughter of the lambs that I 
am paid to care for makes me regard the coyotes 
as all others do, and always to have my gun ready 
to my hand in order to kill when I can. 

Veterans of the West, who have spent their life 
on the plains, insist that even when incredibly far 
away, the coyote can smell whether or not a man is 
carrying firearms. I have always smiled at this 


48 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


statement; tho, really, it often would seem to be the 
sober truth. 

Riding, driving, or on foot, I have many times 
come so near to coyotes that I could distinctly see 
even the glint in their eyes; but only when I have 
been unarmed. Whenever by chance or with a pur¬ 
pose I have carried a gun, they are not in evidence, 
or they keep at a safe distance. 

My horse has a habit of lying down and rolling 
with the saddle on,—presumably for the purpose of 
getting it off. And I have a habit of letting the 
horse carry the rifle in the saddle holster. 

One bright afternoon I dismount to investigate 
something over on the other side of a small ravine. 
It is but a few steps, and I do not bother to take the 
gun with me. Having satisfied my curiosity, I sit 
me down on the old trunk of a fallen tree and look 
about me. As I am sitting there, weighing some¬ 
thing in my mind, a large coyote suddenly appears 
among the bushes, where it stands still and looks 
me over. 

Instinctively I cast my eyes on the horse. It is 
near by, but on the farther side of the ravine; and 
I think an awful swear-word on seeing that the 
horse is about to roll over onto the gun. I shout, 
but this has no effect on the horse. The coyote 
takes to his heels; and as he turns I see the glint of 
something around his neck. It is a sunbeam re¬ 
flected from the nickel trimming of his collar, now 
almost hidden by his splendid fur. 

I run in the direction taken by the beast, and ex¬ 
pect to see him crawl away among the bushes; but 



THE COYOTE 


49 


there is no sign of him anywhere. There is no wind, 
and I would have noticed even the least stir of the 
bushes; and they arc not high enough completely to 
hide the beast. I have no superstition about this 
mystery. I know that a man is a mere child in 
cunning as compared with the wild animals in the 
wild places. I know that King has successfully 
mastered some trick of which I am ignorant. 

When I returned to my horse the gun stock was 
broken off just back of the trigger. 

When animals are sick they seek solitude. Their 
dead bodies may be found in the most unthinkable 
places. A sick dog will crawl to some hiding place, 
and will sometimes for days refuse all food. The 
sheep, used from birth to being one of many, seems 
utterly lost when the others are out of sight. But 
when something is wrong with it, the sheep also will 
sneak away by itself and find a place where it can 
suffer alone. 

I one day saw a sheep do this. Among the three 
thousand there are twenty black ones. I count 
these now and then to make sure that none is lost. 
It is one of these black sheep that sneaks away by 
itself. 

These black sheep are too few anyway, and I 
should hate to lose any of them; so I follow the one 
in question and try to induce it to come back among 
the others. But the sheep is of another mind. It 
starts to run from me as soon as it understands my 
purpose; and it keeps on running till it thinks itself 
safe from me. This happened a few days after the 
time when my horse broke the stock of my gun. 


50 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


Sheep generally have a stubborn disposition, and 
this seems to become even worse when they are sick. 
This particular sick animal wants to get away by 
itself; while I want it to come back, as its black 
fleece makes it especially valuable to me. 

So I am just as persistent as the sheep, and keep 
following it, hoping to get it back among the others. 

It chooses its path wisely over the worst ground, 
so that I am obliged to leave the horse behind me 
and follow on foot. 

Suddenly two coyotes appear between me and the 
sheep. They stand there as if nothing were doing, 
merely looking and sniffing over toward the sheep 
and then toward me. And these two important 
imps of perdition seem entirely undisturbed. They 
trot slowly away like lazy dogs, as if knowing full 
well that I have no firearms with me. They were 
near enough for me to see distinctly that the neck 
of the larger one has a collar deep down in the fine 
fur. 

They now make for the sheep, while I run to 
thwart their foul purpose. They make for it all the 
faster, and beat me to it; but the sheep shows fight 
when attacked by the smaller of the coyotes. 

I run with all my might, shouting: “Bravo. 
Keep them off till I get there.” And the sheep ac¬ 
tually repels the attacks of the smaller coyote again 
and again. Once it even gives her a blow so that 
she rolls over in the dust. 

Then King loses patience, either because of the 
plight of his mate, or because he sees me coming. 

In one jump he reaches the sheep, catches its nose 


THE COYOTE 


51 


between his jaws, as I sometimes have seen sheep¬ 
dogs do it, and throws the sheep to the ground. And 
in the next moment the blood is spouting out of a 
cruel wound in its throat. 

The coyotes then run away; but no doubt they 
are standing somewhere near by and keeping an 
eye on me. 

I poison the carcass with strychnine; for I know 
that the coyotes will come back to it when I am out 
of the way. I am as careful as possible not to 
touch it; in order that they may not catch any scent 
of me when they come back. 

The following day I come again to see what had 
happened. The carcass was untouched. But I 
could see that the coyotes had been there; for they 
had scratched up some earth and scattered it over 
the carcass as if to ridicule my vain attempts on 
their life. 


CHAPTER SIX 


THE CATASTROPHE 

1V/T IDSUMMER is here with glorious days, the 
•*** sun shining out of a cloudless, blue sky. 
There is a grand beauty over the foothills rising up 
to the dark belt of forest; and above this rise the 
snowfields and the gilded mountain peaks. 

Occasionally the scene changes. A little cloud 
may appear as a black blotch on the blue sky; in 
half an hour it has grown to cover a large part 
of the heavens. There is a deluge of rain; and 
then the skies suddenly clear again. 

Of an evening, when the last red light of day has 
turned into yellow, then into gray, and at last into 
black on the western horizon, thunder is heard from 
the mountains close by, or its rumbling is heard 
from far away. 

Sheep do not like the hot weather; on such days 
they are fearfully lazy. They want to lie around 
the watering place all day. From nine or ten 
o’clock in the morning till four or five in the after¬ 
noon they refuse to stir; and then they feed till late 
at night to satisfy their incredible appetite. 

Sheep have less sense than many other animals; 
but only a few of the others have such capacity of 
stomach in proportion to their size. Whether it is 
this surprising greediness or their want of sense 


THE COYOTE 


53 


which sometimes in moonlit nights induces them to 
start off on an excursion across the plains, I can not 
pretend to know. Many times I wake up in the 
middle of the night, either from habit or from 
hearing the howl of a coyote, and find myself alone 
with the dog. 

The coyotes continue their atrocities with an 
energy which never fails them. 

It seems as if every coyote in the mountains al¬ 
ways keeps close to the feeding grounds of the 
sheep. The herders complain; and the sheep own¬ 
ers hire professional hunters and trappers. But in 
spite of everything—poison and traps and lead and 
trained dogs—the coyotes continue to give the 
herders much trouble, and to cause heavy losses to 
the owners. 

It is not only that the beasts kill and eat many. 
But on dark nights, when it rains, or when the wind 
howls among the forest trees, it often happens after 
a visit from the coyotes that great numbers of the 
sheep have separated themselves from the main 
flock; and then the beasts of prey get them. Or 
. they run around without a leader until they stumble 
on some other sheep and join forces with them. 

This last happening improves the situation some¬ 
what, but it still is bad enough. Every owner has 
his sheep branded. But in order that each may get 
his own, the great flock of sheep must be rounded 
up into a corral; and this means hard work for the 
herders and a severe strain on the sheep and lambs. 

Up to this time I had been lucky enough to escape 
any wholesale losses; but I am all the time uneasy 


54 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


and on my guard, for I know that my turn may come 
at any time. 

One evening after a very hot day, which the 
sheep had spent lying lazily in the shade by the 
watering place, I notice that a storm is coming. 

It begins with lightning flashes coming closer 
and closer, while the peals of thunder fairly make 
the earth tremble. I have seen it coming, and have 
pulled on my oilcloth coat and hat. The sheep 
crowd close together, as they always do in stormy 
weather, without lying down. I and my dog go 
around bent double against the wind, listening to 
the howling of the storm and of the coyotes, and 
trying to see as much as we can of the situation 
whenever a flash of lightning cuts thru the darkness. 
Generally a storm does not last long at this season 
of the year, but on this particular night it seemed 
determined to keep it up forever. A half hour 
goes and is followed by another, and yet another, 
unceasingly. 

Whenever there is a lull, just after a peal of 
thunder has died like an echo among the ravines, 
we hear the wild howls of the coyotes. 

Around midnight the storm is at its worst, and so 
are the coyotes. These seem to have been waiting 
half the night for the time when the storm should 
be raging most fiercely. 

I have always liked the coyotes and their nightly 
concerts; they have given me a sort of pleasant 
sensation, as being expressive of the wild and free. 
I like to hear these sounds on going to bed, to be 


THE COYOTE 


55 


awakened by them in the night, and to be greeted 
by them again in the gray light of early dawn. 

But this stormy night it was another story. These 
long, discordant howls, generally so pleasant in my 
ears, have become so serious a matter, so fraught 
with danger, that it seems as if a tragedy were low¬ 
ering over me. 

The sheep seem to share my anxiety. They do 
not stand as still as they usually do in a storm; they 
are moving all the time and huddling close together. 
The bells hanging around the necks of some of them 
do not have room to give out a clear tinkle. 

Then for a time there is silence. The thunder 
ceases; and the coyotes that have been howling near 
by keep their peace. I hasten to the rescue; for 
when the coyotes have been howling and keeping 
watch near a flock of sheep, and then suddenly stop 
their noise, it nearly always means that the robbers 
are coming nearer. 

Experience has taught me this lesson, and it 
comes true this time also. The catastrophe is 
upon us. 

The coyotes are among the sheep; and I, whose 
business it is to guard these animals, am almost 
helpless. I can hear how the sheep run and bleat 
and how the bells jingle when one of the leaders 
jumps over the others; but I can see nothing. 

I hurry till I am bathed in sweat, trying to keep 
the sheep together. I order the dog to circle 
around them; tho I know that he will not obey when 
the coyotes are near. I fire my rifle again and 
again, but nothing comes of it. The sheep are in a 


56 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


panic. Their circle is widened and then broken; 
and a flash of lightning just then illuminating the 
scene, I see three thousand sheep running for their 
lives in all directions. 

I am up all night, stumbling about in the dark, 
and getting together again as many as I can. I 
have only the bells to guide me. When at last the 
day breaks and the storm ceases, and I am able to 
count my black sheep, seven of the nineteen are 
gone. 

I can not leave the sheep which I still have to go 
hunting for the others; and two days pass before 
the foreman joins me. 

Three days later he finds a flock of eight hundred 
sheep at a place twelve miles away. 

I can not say positively that King was responsible 
for this outrage; but he has of late been committing 
so many unlawful acts that suspicion at once falls 
on him. 

In reporting to the owner the foreman swore that 
the tragedy had been caused by that infamous coy¬ 
ote with the collar. This brings King into greater 
disrepute than ever. And the ranch-owners having 
promised an extra large prize for the fur of the 
brute, with the collar as proof of his identity, poor 
King is hereafter hunted by everybody as the worst 
of outlaws. 

There are many ways of hunting the coyote. To 
run it down with fast dogs, such as the wolf hound 
and the grey hound, is probably the most effective 
way out on the open plains; but in the mountains, 
where there are countless deep ravines with per- 


THE COYOTE 


57 


pendicular sides, where there are streams to cross, 
and where patches of forest interfere with the run 
and with the outlook, the usual means of hunting 
is with poison or with traps. 

However, these methods also have their disad¬ 
vantages. In the summer the mountain pastures 
are full of sheep, and with each bunch of these there 
is at least one dog; and the poison and the traps are 
just as dangerous to the dog as to the coyote or 
the wolf. 

I have many traps in the wagon; but for the sake 
of the dog I dare not use them. The dog has a 
very inquisitive turn of mind. Often 1 am obliged 
to shout hard at it to keep it from smelling of the 
rattlesnakes—the rattlesnakes, which nearly all 
other animals, wild or tame, fear and shun as death 
itself. 

One day I ride some miles down the river to 
catch some trout for my dinner. The sun is warm 
as I ride home. I am half asleep in my saddle, 
wdien I am aroused by the horse’s stopping short 
and pricking up its ears. I look in the same direc¬ 
tion and see a little and a big coyote trotting west¬ 
ward up on the brow of a ridge, each of them with 
one of my lambs between its jaws. They are on 
their way home with dinner for their young. 

It does not look as if King’s progeny were in 
danger of dying out for want of food. 

I have no chance to do any damage to the coy¬ 
otes with a rifle shot from this distance. But I 
know the habits of the beasts. I know that they 
will, if feasible, keep on top of the ridge, from 


58 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


which they will have the wider view; so I gallop to 
the end of this ridge, leave the horse in a hollow, 
and hide myself carefully behind a big boulder. 

I lie flat on my stomach, expecting at any moment 
to see King and his mate come into view; for I feel 
sure that they have not seen me. 

But minutes pass, and still the beasts do not 
come. I give it up; feeling sure that they have 
changed their course. I go to get into my saddle 
and ride home; but the horse is not to be found. I 
climb a tree the better to look about me; and far 
away on the road I see the horse being chased by a 
large coyote. 

King probably had seen me as soon as I saw him, 
or even sooner. But he had pretended not to see 
me, in order to lead me on a fool’s errand. 

At a distance of fifty feet from the wagon a 
spring of clear water bubbles up out of the ground. 
I had at this place dug a shallow cellar, four or five 
feet square; in which I had arranged some shelves 
for butter and other such eatables that do not like 
the heat. I spent some time on this work, making 
everything as convenient as I could, and then cov¬ 
ered the cellar over with branches. 

During the summer there are also in the moun¬ 
tains great herds of cattle; and to keep these away 
from my provisions I drive stakes into the earth 
around my larder, and build a strong fence of sap¬ 
lings. This will keep out the cows and horses, the 
only animals against which I must use these precau¬ 
tions. So I think at least; till I come home one day 
and find my jar of butter and my other food in a 


THE COYOTE 


59 


sad state of disorder. My fence is intact; so the 
havoc can not have been wrought by horses or cat¬ 
tle. I make a closer examination, and the tracks in 
the wet earth tell the true story. There are the 
footmarks of a big and a little coyote. The paw of 
King is half as big again as that of his mate. 

I have often marvelled at the fact that this one 
coyote, that is so young, shows such shameless im¬ 
pudence and such sly cunning in all his adventures. 
He is now specially sought after by all herders and 
others in these parts, by reason of the money in it 
and by reason of his peculiar infamy. 

The talk about King’s exploits, his audacity and 
cunning, his wolf-like propensity to kill more than 
he can devour, has made him known far and wide. 
The more I see and hear of it, the more certain I 
am that his mate is the wily leader; that she lays the 
plans, and he carries them out; that it is her older 
brain which directs them safely thru all dangers; 
that it is her trained instinct which defeats all our 
well laid plans to have their life. 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


A COSTLY SHOT 

S TUBB, our foreman, is the best shot I ever have 
seen. He was born and has grown up on the 
plains. In our war with Spain he served in the 
cavalry, and was awarded a medal for his skill with 
the rifle. He never uses a shot-gun, not even when 
shooting birds. He clips the heads clean off the 
prairie chickens. If on rare occasions it happens 
that the ball goes thru any other part of their body, 
he never brings the bird home with him. 

No man is better acquainted than is Stubb with 
all the wild things of the prairie. He is a master in 
the art of setting traps and snares without leaving 
on them any scent of his hands. And many a wolf 
and coyote has lost its life thru eating meat which 
Stubb had poisoned. 

But all his cunning with traps and poison seems 
to be of no account against these two robbers, King 
and his wise mate. He has tried every trick known 
to the hunter. He has sworn to have the scalps of 
the two beasts before the sheep next fall are taken 
back to the grazing lands down on the prairie. 

When he has satisfied himself that he can do 
nothing by means of traps and poison, he tries to 
think out some other way; and the coveted money 
prize stimulates his inventive genius. 


THE COYOTE 


61 


The coyote has the habit of sniffing at everything 
which it smells, even when not driven to it by hun¬ 
ger. The beast seems to be so inquisitive that it 
will smell of everything which it finds, and bite into 
it with no thought of eating it; or it will touch the 
thing with its foot after the manner of a dog. 

Stubb knows this, and makes use of the knowl¬ 
edge. 

In the wagon there is an old shot gun whose bar¬ 
rel has been sawed off to the length of barely one 
foot. Stubb hides this gun in the brush; and to the 
trigger he fastens a cord with a piece of meat at its 
other end. 

He knows that the coyotes will catch the scent 
of this meat, and will sniff at it and touch it; and the 
gun points straight at the meat. But he knows also 
that they will be able to detect the smell of gun and 
powder, and so the outcome of his experiment will 
depend on a combination of circumstances. 

In the evening when King’s deep bass and his 
mate’s piercing soprano have echoed thru the ra¬ 
vines, I lie there and listen. I fall asleep and wake 
up again without having heard the report of the 
gun. But toward morning the gun goes off, the re¬ 
port rolling like an echo over the hills. I see a faint 
suggestion of dawn in the east; and I hurriedly get 
some clothes on and go out to see what has hap¬ 
pened. 

There is plain proof that the coyotes first had 
examined the gun; for some branches with which 
Stubb had thought the better to hide it have been 
pulled from their place. The coyotes had been ex- 


62 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


tremely careful; they would seem to be fully aware 
that anything smelling of powder and man is dan¬ 
gerous. Still they could not resist the temptation 
to tamper with the meat. They have nibbled at it, 
but standing as far as possible to one side; and so 
when the gun goes off they escape with nothing 
worse than a fright. 

“Luck was with them tonight,” I said to Stubb 
on meeting him that morning. He insists that those 
brutes knew which was the dangerous end of the 
gun, and that they had intentionally pulled the trig¬ 
ger, keeping themselves outside of the danger zone. 

But Stubb is not ready to admit defeat. In this 
first experiment there had been nothing wrong with 
his calculations, excepting that the shot missed the 
mark. 

So Stubb busies himself trying to think out some 
new trick; and in a day or two he has an idea which 
is sure to make a final end of King and his wife. 

He goes out in the morning with the same sawed- 
off shotgun, with pick and spade on his shoulder and 
a small sack of powder on his back. 

He is going to prepare a mine. In order not to 
excite the suspicion of the coyotes by digging too 
much he empties the powder sack into the burrow 
of a badger, which he has stopped up at the depth 
of a couple of feet. Then he plants the gun, point¬ 
ing downward and loaded to the muzzle, into the 
powder mine. The coyotes are to fire the gun as 
before, and the gun is to fire the mine. 

It is a shrewd plan. If the brutes come, as they 


THE COYOTE 


63 


did before, and tug at the bait, they will without 
question be damaged beyond repair. 

In order to mislead them he shoots a rabbit, lets 
it lie and bleed on the earth with which he has stop¬ 
ped up the burrow, and then fastens the body of the 
rabbit to the short string tied to the trigger. 

In obedience to the almanac the sun goes down, 
and I hear the familiar voice of King coming out of 
the west. Then I see him on a distant ridge, dis¬ 
tinctly silhouetted against the red evening sky. I 
feel a sneaking sympathy for the beast as I think of 
the powder mine prepared for him. 

He may now be singing his last song to the setting 
sun. This night he and his beloved mate may be 
blown up into the sky in order to fall down as dead 
carrion. I do not sleep well that night. I wake up 
time and again thinking that I have heard the mine 
go off. 

However, it does not happen; and in the morn¬ 
ing we go out to investigate the matter. There are 
many footmarks, big and little, around the body of 
the rabbit, showing that the two brutes had been 
there; but the meat had apparently not been touch¬ 
ed. They have been made wise by experience. 

The scare on the night when the gun went off 
has probably been so great that the memory of it 
now cures them of the desire to touch anything 
smelling of man. 

We know that they have their home somewhere 
down in the ravine; but this is broad and deep and 
long, and we do not know exactly where their bur¬ 
row may be. 


64 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


Stubb regrets that he had not given all his mind 
to finding their home at the time just after the cubs 
came. 

In September we are to move the sheep down 
from the hills. There is not much time left; and 
Stubb must hurry if he is to carry out his fell pur¬ 
pose. He is out on the hunt early and late. Some¬ 
times he spends the whole day down in the ravine, 
but nothing comes of it. 

The autumn fogs begin to come. In a week or 
two our stay up here will be at an end. 

At the bottom of the ravine Stubb has found 
many well-worn tracks. In all of them he sets his 
traps, and he tells me always to keep my dog near 
me. 

One evening he and I sit by the wagon, smoking 
a pipe after our evening meal. The sun is just go¬ 
ing down; red and dull, so that we can look it 
straight in the face, as at the moon, without blink¬ 
ing. 

Suddenly we hear King’s deep bass howl, sound¬ 
ing faintly from far away. By straining our eyes 
we can see him up on the ridge, right against the 
sun, with his side toward us, and howling toward 
heaven. 

“He would be a fine target,” I said, “were he 
but a little nearer.” 

Stubb catches up his rifle and adjusts the long 
distance sight; not as being confident that he can do 
any execution from this distance, but as being merely 
curious to see how near he can come to hitting the 
mark. 


THE COYOTE 


65 


I watch him and see the strained muscles of his 
face, as he looks along the barrel. He takes aim for 
a long time without pulling the trigger. Then he 
gets down on one knee, resting an elbow on the 
other. 

I look up again; and King is still standing there 
barking at the heavens. I feel keenly how he fits 
into the picture—over there against the dying sun. 

In my thoughts I thank him for the many 
times he has sung to me, the song of the great soli¬ 
tude; and in my secret heart I am glad that he is 
so far away. 

Then I hear the crack of the rifle; and we can see 
how the coyote turns a complete somersault back¬ 
ward. 

“You hit him, I think,” I faintly remark. 

“No; and I did not expect it either. But I missed 
him only by a scratch.” 

I lie awake thru the greater part of that night. 
I hear the howling of coyotes on all hands; but not 
once do I hear what I am listening for: the familiar 
tones of King. 

In the morning I am driven to start out on a tour 
of investigation. My heart is pounding in my 
breast as I expect every moment to stumble across 
the carcass of the robber, who had caused me so 
much trouble, but of whom I could not help being 
fond nevertheless. 

I do not find the body; but among the bunchgrass 
dotting the gray earth I see bloodspots. I follow 
these as far as I can, till they are lost in the ravine. 

Nor do we hear the familiar voice on the follow- 


66 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


ing nights; but the sharper voice of his mate comes 
to us over the hills like a long wail and an accusa¬ 
tion. 

One evening a week later I discover that King 
still is living. I am walking up the bed of a dry 
creek, against the wind, and in one of the many 
twists and turns I see the two of them at supper. 

They run away as soon as they see me, she in the 
lead. As poor King follows his usual zigzag path 
between the mounds I see what the rifle had done 
to him, and why he for some days has not been in 
evidence. One of his forepaws has been shot off 
right below the knee. 

After this time we do not see him often. He 
seems to have become more cautious; as he needs to 
be, owing to the loss of a foot. And when I hear 
him at night it seems to me that his big voice has 
in it a peculiarly mournful trembling. 

A few days more, and we must migrate down to 
the plains. 

It does not look as if Stubb would be able to re¬ 
deem his promise to rid us of those coyotes; still he 
steadily persists in the effort. 

It may be that King’s spirit is broken, so that he 
is less cautious; or he may no longer have the 
strength to follow his mate up hill and down dale 
among the mountains. 

I have always held that the strength of these two 
coyotes lay in her cunning and his prowess. But the 
loss of the foot has sapped his vigor; and this seems 
to have lessened his courage, or at least his hardi¬ 
hood. He is no longer able to keep up with her, 


THE COYOTE 


67 


be guided by her greater experience, and warned 
by her easily aroused suspicion. 

He may have been hungry, poor fellow; and hard 
as it must be for him to provide himself with food, 
he has one day—or rather night—been sniffing at 
one of Stubb’s appetizing pieces of bait, and care¬ 
lessly or clumsily got a foot into the trap, whose 
strong steel jaws then closed on it and held him fast. 

The trap is fastened by a chain to a fencepost. It 
takes strength to pull all this over the uneven 
ground. But incredible as it seems, King with his 
three feet, and one of these in the trap, had been 
able to drag the whole thing with him toward his 
home in the ravine. 

I was with Stubb on his trip that day. 

“We will surely get him today,” he shouts when 
he sees that the trap is gone; “no other coyote 
would be able to pull such a load.” 

In some excitement we follow the marks made by 
the trap and the post clear to the edge of the ra¬ 
vine. 

Right on the brink the post has got in the brush. 
The chain hangs down taut over the edge above 
the deep gorge; and there, hanging in the trap by 
the remaining forepaw, is King’s dead body. 

The head is turned to one side; and the eyes 
are open, looking unseeingly out over the ravine, 
which has so often been his safe refuge in time of 
danger. He has turned to it now in his agony; and 
in the recklessness of despair he has taken the fatal 
leap to get away from his human enemies. Or he 


68 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


may have thought to rid himself of his burden by 
jumping over the brink. 

And so there is an end of the life history of this 
coyote. He did not live to be old, but his short life 
was full of adventure. 

We stay but a few days more in the mountains; 
for autumn is here, and the fog hangs heavy over 
us day and night. 

But every night we hear the mate of King calling 
to him in wailing tones. Night after night she 
howls her despair, so that the echo of it comes to 
us from the walls of the ravine. 

She is answered from far and near, but not by 
the one to whom she is calling; his voice is forever 
stilled. 

His progeny, however, is living. They have in¬ 
herited his prowess and cunning, and will sometime 
make themselves feared, as their sire was, by the 
sheep-owners. 

It would seem that even the most persistent per¬ 
secution on the part of man is not able to bring 
about the extermination, or thin the numbers, of 
these most interesting animals. 

Out of the lonely and endless plains they live and 
thrive, and successfully pit their cunning against 
that of man. 

For the coyotes are wonderfully wise; and they 
learn more and more of cunning as civilization 
presses in upon them, and as the generations come 
and go. 

Their habitat has always been almost where it is 


THE ccm 


69 


now; it seems never to have reached much farther 
east. 

Civilization has encroached to some extent on 
the territorial integrity of their country; but the 
coyotes, like the Indians, fight for every inch of 
their native soil, and do it with greater success. 

As soon as we reach these wild solitudes the 
coyotes are in evidence. Out on the wide plains, 
or where the foothills rise in fantastic shapes up 
toward the mountains, in the biting storms of winter 
and in the fierce heat of summer, the howl of the 
coyote is in the land. 

The coyote sings when the sun goes down; it sings 
to the moon, and to the stars studding the dark 
heavens. There are songs of praise at the break 
of day. But they seem to sing in derision at night 
when a lonely campfire flares up in the dark solitude. 











A TRAGEDY OF THE PRAIRIE 




















CHAPTER ONE 


MOTHER-LOVE 

I T IS a day in winter. For three days a snow¬ 
storm has been raging over the prairie. The 
tufts of heather are covered with snow, the hollows 
are smoothened out, and great drifts have been 
swept together in the ravines. 

For three days the heavens have been hid; a 
storm from the north has howled unceasingly over 
the treeless plains. It is in winter, when the snow 
is a foot deep on the prairie, that the animals suf¬ 
fer, of hunger and cold. Then the struggle for 
existence is most fierce; the weak must die, and the 
strong survive. 

A herd of many hundred cows painfully make 
head thru the storm. They are not the kind of 
cows found on a farm in the states farther east. 
They give no milk; they are in a wild or half-wild 
state. They belong to somebody, and as calves they 
have been branded; but they live their life as free as 
any other wild animal—till they are turned into 
beef for our dinners. 

Some are killed by wild beasts; and some are kill¬ 
ed by hunger and cold, and are eaten by the beasts 
of prey, which are too weak or timid to attack them 
living. Generally the cattle manage to live thru 
the winter on the dry grasses of the prairie. But 


74 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


some winters are too severe for them, with heavy 
snows and bitter winds all the time; winters as 
merciless as death itself. 

The winter which I have in mind was one of the 
stormy and long ones. We had snow and wind 
nearly all the time, for days and weeks; even for 
months. There were some few clear days, but 
these were always bitter cold. 

The great plain is a limitless ocean of snow, a 
blanket of white as far as the eye can reach. It 
sparkles in golden colors when the sun shines, but 
is like a white pall when the gray sky hangs low and 
threatening over the prairie. 

The great herd of cattle winds slowly thru the 
snow. Thus they have been struggling for days 
and weeks; fighting against the elements, the in¬ 
vincible. 

All this time the cows have sustained life on the 
heather and grass they have found by scraping 
away the snow; and on the surplus fat which they 
put on during the summer, when the grass was green 
and plentiful. But now the fat has long since been 
consumed in the strenuous work of scraping thru 
the snow for every poor blade of dry grass. The 
cows are reduced to skin and bones. They are 
walking skeletons covered with loose hides. How¬ 
ever, miserable as they are, they still want to live. 
They do not surrender till they must. They fight 
hard against snow and storm and bitter cold, against 
hunger and misery. Having no imagination, no 
power to think, they can not be supposed to fight in 
hopes of something better. Their struggle is mere- 


A TRAGEDY OF THE PRAIRIE 


75 


ly instinctive; they obey nature’s first law, the in¬ 
stinct of self-preservation. 

They follow nature; but nature turns upon them 
and persecutes them. The severe winters are one 
of the means used by nature for thinning the ranks 
of the living. The weak must go under, and the 
strong survive; and so the race grows better and 
stronger. Thus nature keeps the numbers dow r n. 
When the winter is severe on the herbivorous ani¬ 
mals it is severe on the carnivorous beasts also. 
When the denizens of the prairie have a famine 
they have it all together. Generally their life is one 
of too great abundance or one of want. In summer 
the cattle wallow in food, while winter is a season 
of want and death. 

When winter is severe and food scarce the coy¬ 
otes have a habit of keeping close to the lean and 
hungry cattle in order to eat such as lie down and 
die. Usually the coyotes will not attack a cow that 
is full-grown, but they follow at a distance, follow 
her all day and all night. At times they follow 
without making the least sound, and then again 
they howl threateningly; always ready for a carnival 
of feasting whenever the poor cow is no longer able 
to keep on her feet. 

The heavy snowstorm has lasted three days and 
nights; and all this time hundreds of famished cows 
have drifted w 7 ith the storm. When the storm is 
especially severe, and the cows are too tired to walk 
farther, they seek shelter in some ravine, but never 
for a long time. For hunger tears at their vitals 


76 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


and otherwise tortures them,and will' give them no 
peace. 

The strongest break camp, and the others fol¬ 
low. The last to leave the shelter is a lean cow, 
with a calf that is half dead of hunger. 

The calf is a little bit of a thing, much smaller 
than the others. It came later into the world, and 
has never enjoyed the best of health. 

The other cows are far on their way, stretched 
out into long files or scattered as black spots over 
the white blanket, before the old cow begins to stir, 
and turns her head to look after her calf, which 
is not yet on its feet. The cow goes on, and then 
again turns and looks with big and sad eyes at her 
progeny, but still the calf does not move. Its 
strength is exhausted, and it no longer cares. Even 
the two coyotes, sitting in the snow and waiting, no 
longer mean anything to the starved calf. Some 
days ago these beasts would have driven it to seek 
safety in the very thickest of the herd. But now 
hunger and cold have made it callous to everything. 
Death is fastening on the little famished body. But 
mother love is strong in the heart of the cow. The 
calf is some months old, but the mother still cares 
tenderly for it. The calf has from birth been under¬ 
sized and weak; and the mother has had to protect 
it against the other calves. For that reason also 
these two had always kept close together. Prob¬ 
ably this was one reason why the mother love had 
not weakened, but had been kept strong and had 
remained as new as it had been when the calf for 



MOTHER-LOVE 







A TRAGEDY OF THE PRAIRIE 


77 


the first time fastened its soft muzzle on the cow’s 
udder. 

The cow would not think of going away and leav¬ 
ing the calf behind her. When it does not move 
she calls to it. In our ears this sad “moo-Go” is 
merely the lowing of cattle, but between a cow and 
her calf it is big with meaning. 

Now it is a cry from the heart in uttermost dis¬ 
tress; a mother calling despairingly to her offspring. 
The calf makes an effort to rise from its bed deep 
in the snow, but sinks back; its legs will not support 
it, and the snow gives it but a poor foothold. 

As the calf tries to rise the coyotes also spring 
to their feet: and when it sinks back into the snow 
they sit down again. These beasts of prey are in 
no hurry, now when the winter storms make life 
so hard. They are content to bide their time. They 
are sure of the outcome, and so they are patient as 
death. And they hang on like grim death, confident 
of finally being rewarded. All they need is patience; 
at the end of it there is food. And food is the life. 
Other animals must die that the coyote may live. 
They must shed their life-blood, that the blood in 
the veins of the coyote may run strong and full.' 

The coyote’s tenacity of life, while other animals 
succumb, is wonderful, something incredible. They, 
too, are reduced to mere bone and sinew; but their 
gray and fine and long-haired coats hide the lean 
skeletons. The coyotes may go for days without 
food. They can do with little when little is to be 
had; and when there is abundance they revel in glut¬ 
tony. 


78 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


When the cow sees that the calf sinks back into 
the snow she turns and comes back. She will not 
leave it; this her mother-love will not permit. She 
does not see any way of helping the calf, but she 
must not desert it. She sees the coyotes, and knows 
well enough what it is they are waiting for. 

The cow seems to say something in a low guttural 
tone, and the calf makes another abortive effort to 
rise. Then the cow resolutely lifts it to its feet. 

And so they start out on their weary way thru 
the snow and storm. The cow breaks the path, 
and the calf follows on unsteady legs. And be¬ 
hind them come the coyotes. The rest of the herd 
of cattle have long since disappeared in the storm, 
but their tracks can still be followed. 

It is in the afternoon, but darkness has already 
begun to settle down over the plain. Nothing is 
seen but snow, and nothing heard but the howling 
of the storm above them. The cow does not stop 
to search for food; she has not the time. She is 
nearly dead of hunger, but will not stop to find a 
bunch of grass. The one thing of importance is 
to reach the rest of the herd before night. She 
is used to being with the others; and to be there 
in the herd is to be well protected. In union there 
is strength. None knows this better than does the 
cow. She is fully aware also that behind her stalks 
death in the form of two famished coyotes. 

The cow is old, and has spent all her life on the 
plains; she has seen and learnt much. She knows 
that coyotes following the herd for days in a win¬ 
ter storm spell death to the animal left behind. 


A TRAGEDY OF THE PRAIRIE 


79 


There is no salvation now but in catching up with 
the herd. This is her one hope, to realize which 
she exhausts her last bit of strength. 

Thus an hour passes—and another. Twilight 
comes; and the lone cow and calf have not caught 
up with the herd. Nor can she catch their scent; 
for she is going south, with the storm. And every 
other sound is swallowed up by the howling of the 
wind; tho from some place far behind them the cry 
of a coyote is heard thru the shrieking of the storm. 
The two coyotes just behind the cow and calf stop 
to answ r er the cry. They want no company; would 
in fact prefer to be but the two of them when the 
calf drops dead. But they answer the cry of their 
fellows; in obedience to a law which is stronger than 
reason, an inherited, inevitable instinct. And the 
howl of the coyotes pierces the marrow and bone of 
the cow and her calf, cuts thru their heart and brain. 
It is death which howls at their heels—the death 
which they also dread, but without knowing what 
it is. And the fear of death strikes the cow like 
a flash of lightning. The tired muscles respond; 
she makes a desperate effort to increase her speed, 
with her nerves tingling from fear. 

It lasts but a moment; a few steps on the run, 
and her strength is gone. Weak and weary they 
again drag themselves slowly onward. 

When the coyotes have satisfied their instinct 
by howling they again follow at the heels of the 
cow and calf. The coyotes are not afraid to let 
their quarry leave them some distance behind; for 
the coyotes are a light weight, and can run on top 


80 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


of the snow. Sometimes one of them in a spirit 
of bravado disports itself in front of the cow, or 
runs at her side on top of the snow, thru which she 
must plow her way. 

So they go till it is quite dark. Cow, calf, and 
coyotes are coated with ice. 

They come to a small ravine. The snow is deeper 
there; but under the overhanging ledge there is 
shelter. The storm passes over their heads. The 
calf drops to the ground, and will make no further 
effort to rise. In despair the cow urges it to come 
on; but the calf is too far gone to obey. It closes 
its eyes and rests its head on the snow. Then the 
mother comes back, sniffs at her calf once or twice, 
and sinks down at its side. The coyotes also stop 
short. Then they sneak as near as they dare. Hav¬ 
ing satisfied themselves that the cow and calf still 
are alive, they dig themselves down into the snow 
some little distance from the spot in order to wait 
—and wait. 


CHAPTER TWO 


TO THE RESCUE 

T N the morning the storm is over, and the light 
* of a pale sun shines on the fields of snow. The 
air is bitter cold. At the earliest sign of dawn the 
coyotes had crawled out of their bed in the snow. 

Since then they have been running to and fro, or 
they have merely been engaged in watchful waiting. 
Their hot breath rises like white smoke into the 
cold air. Hunger is gnawing at their vitals; but 
never for a moment do they feel disposed to leave 
the cow and calf which they have followed so long, 
and to seek other food. They know—in so far as 
brute beasts can know anything—that patient per¬ 
sistence must win at last. They sit there like dogs, 
keeping an eye on the snowdrift in which the cow 
and calf are sheltered. They sit there with bright 
eyes, breathing hard, as after a long race, with ex¬ 
citement or expectation, and with the long tongue 
hanging red and moist out of the open mouth. 

Only the head of the cow can be seen. Not till 
the sun is up does she move and get to her feet, and 
shake the snow off her freezing body. She sniffs 
at the calf, roots with her nose in the snow, and 
utters her low “Moo-oo.” And now the calf is able 
to get up and stand without the help of the mother. 


82 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


It is faint with hunger, but the long rest has put 
some new strength back into the young limbs. 

Then begins again the endless struggle onward. 
It is even worse than it was the day before. Snow 
has filled the tracks made by the herd going before 
the storm. At every step the cow sinks deep, so 
that her shrunken belly touches the snow. This is 
the most cruel trial of all, particularly when the 
fields of snow stretch without a break as far as the 
eye can reach. 

It is a good thing that the mother cow does not 
have the power to think. A man may realize that 
a certain thing is impossible, but a cow does not. 
Therefore she persists in attempting the impossible. 

As long as there is life in man there is hope. 
Hope sustains him till death comes to his relief. 
While there is life in the beasts there is life; and 
they are sustained, not by hope, but merely by life, 
till they die. 

The fearful strain of it, the bitter pull thru the 
deep snow, does not frighten the cow; it only tires 
her. She does not see death in the snowfield; for 
she, fortunately, has no imagination. She sees death 
only in those living enemies, the coyotes following 
at her heels; of these she has an instinctive dread. 

The cow keeps looking for the rest of the herd, 
of which she yesterday was a part; but they are 
nowhere to be seen, nor does any wind carry to her 
nostrils the news of their whereabouts. 

The two condemned animals struggle onward, the 
calf following close after the mother, till the sun 
is in the meridian. Hunger tortures the poor little 


A TRAGEDY OF THE PRAIRIE 


83 


beast; its eyes shine big and hot with fever from 
the sunken sockets. Both the animals sweat from 
weariness; and the sweat at once turns to ice on 
their lean backs. 

Tho insistently tortured by hunger they do not 
search for food. The cow knows that there is no 
use in searching for it where the snow is so deep. 
They must wait, and go on and on, till they find 
a place swept more nearly bare. 

So they continue, till the sun is low, and till it 
goes down. The landscape then suddenly seems 
so deserted; there is a strange, blue loneliness upon 
it. There is something heavy, depressing, lowering 
over it between sundown and twilight; something 
felt rather than seen; something impressive and 
mysterious, which embraces it all just before dark¬ 
ness comes. 

The stillness of death broods over the plain. But 
soon this quiet is again broken by the barking of 
the coyotes. They may be singing farewell to the 
sun, or they may be greeting the dark night. Prob¬ 
ably, however, they are crying for food, complaining 
to high heaven of their intolerable hunger. 

Now the night is pitch dark; tho the snow casts 
a shimmer of faint light over the earth, while 
myriads of bright stars stud the dark vault of 
heaven. 

The moon makes its appearance on the eastern 
horizon, and climbs upward with a speed noticeable 
to the naked eye. It throws a pale light over the 
plains. The light grows gradually stronger. It 


84 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


fills all space, and illuminates the heavens; and the 
stars become pale and die. 

And in the midst of this beautiful winter scene 
a cow and her calf are dying of hunger. The calf 
lies there with limbs pulled close together, in order 
to make the most of what heat there is in the lean 
body. The mother cow lies down right by her off¬ 
spring to give it some of her own warmth, which 
she sadly needs for herself. 

The calf plainly has given up the struggle. It 
is no longer tortured by hunger; it is too far gone 
for that, and has hungered too long. The pain of 
it is over. Now the calf is only tired. It wants 
to lie there. The instinct of self-preservation is 
dead. 

It is as with a man suffering from sea-sickness; 
for all he cares they may pitch him overboard. 

The cow seems to be not quite so far gone; tho 
she also is close to the border-line. She does not 
feel her hunger as keenly as she did. There is a 
numbness in place of the painful gnawing at the 
vitals. She, also, is tired unto death; but in her 
starved heart the first law of nature still faintly 
obtains. 

While the mother and her calf lie there in the 
snow under the light of the moon, fighting their 
very last fight, the coyotes sit near by and sing their 
slow and sad dirge. An answer comes from out on 
the plain. The sound carries far in the still air 
over the wintry prairie and brings to the ears of 
the cow a cruel message. It is death that is howl- 


A TRAGEDY OF THE PRAIRIE 


85 


ing, and the sound of it trembles in the cold air of 
night. 

One result of the cry is that other coyotes come. 
Now there are four of them; all hungry—des¬ 
perately, ravenously hungry. As the night grows 
older they grow more audacious; they always gain 
courage when they are many. These four now sit 
around the dying animals, licking their chops, en¬ 
joying the sight of them, greedily breathing the 
smell of them. But the wait is too long. The coy¬ 
otes become impatient of the persistence with which 
those two starved beasts cling to life. For the 
coyotes also are famished. Their empty bowels 
ache and complain, and their long tongues hang 
down and stretch out as tho already revelling in the 
taste of blood. Their eyes flash fire, and they even 
smack their lips noisily with hot desire. 

As time goes by their hunger makes them still 
more audacious. They edge nearer to the calf, one 
step at a time. But when they are as near as the 
cow will have them she makes as if she were going 
to get up. And the coyotes retire, but only to come 
on again as soon as the cow lies quiet by the side of 
her calf. 

And so it goes thru the first half of the night. 
The moon is now at its highest and lights up the 
stage on which is being played one of the tragedies 
of the plain. 

One of the latest comers among the coyotes has 
more courage than the others, and is also larger 
and stronger. It refuses to starve with food right 
before its eyes. So it steals over to the calf on the 


86 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


side where the cow is not, and at last induces her to 
get up and defend her offspring. 

The other coyotes then also take courage and fol¬ 
low the brave example. One such is enough to make 
them take the offensive. They crowd in upon the 
poor cattle, and present the first scene in the last 
act of this tragedy. 

The large coyote growls, and pounces on the calf, 
now too weak to get up. But the mother’s heart 
has room for only one purpose—to defend her calf. 
A spark of life flares up in her, and the limbs that 
were deadly tired now obey blindly. With a bel¬ 
low of rage she makes an onslaught on the largest 
of the coyotes and puts it to rout. 

However, the other three beasts attack from the 
other side. They snarl and hiss a most infernal dis¬ 
cord, such as only the coyotes can produce. The 
hairs of the neck stiffen, and the lips are turned back 
and expose the long, white, and cruel fangs. They 
smell meat, and in anticipation they already taste 
blood. Again and again the harassed cow turns 
on the beast which ventures nearest to the calf. But 
she has difficulty in moving thru the deep snow, 
while the coyotes walk on top of the crust. No 
sooner has she driven one away than another is 
upon her from the other side. Famished and tired 
as the cow already is, the fight can not last long. 
Like demons the coyotes leap this way and that, 
snarling furiously. The poor cow is all but utterly 
helpless; the brutes are too quick for her. Her 
sober reason tells her to run away, but her mother- 
love says no. She can not leave her calf behind. 


A TRAGEDY OF THE PRAIRIE 


87 


And while she is steaming with the hard exercise 
and bellowing with rage, and makes a dash at the 
coyotes when these come too near the calf, this 
poor thing lifts its head to see what is doing. But 
at this moment two sharp fangs sink into its neck. 
The calf remains lying in the same place; it was 
nearly dead before it died. Not a muscle moves 
under the loose hide, and there is heard no com¬ 
plaint. The only motion is a bubbling in the throat, 
from which the blood gushes forth and colors the 
snow red. As soon as the coyotes smell blood they 
all push forward. In their ravenous hunger they 
are now so fierce that the cow can no longer keep 
them at a distance. 

The cow understands all right what has hap¬ 
pened to her calf, that its life has been snuffed out. 

So with her last remaining strength she pulls her¬ 
self together and leaves the scene; with weary steps 
and hanging head continuing her march over the 
endless sea of snow. 


CHAPTER THREE 


THE FINISH 

t'OR the latter half of the night the poor cow has 
* peace. The coyotes gorge themselves, filling 
their famished stomachs to utter repletion with the 
bloody meat. Then the reaction sets in; they be¬ 
come heavy and drowsy, and dig themselves down 
into the snow to sleep and digest. 

While the coyotes are sleeping away the effects 
of their too abundant meal, the lone cow continues 
her course, and does not stop till morning. She 
is not used to being alone, and the loneliness now 
frightens her. Nothing stirs on any side; she seems 
to be the only living thing in a dead world. The 
full moon no longer lights up the snowy landscape, 
but has hid itself behind a cloud. The sharp cold 
is tempered by a mild and moist breeze from the 
south. The cow looks for a place where she may 
lie down to rest. There is nothing else which she 
now needs so badly; her strength is utterly ex¬ 
hausted. Since midnight she has been walking, not 
because she had the strength to do it, but because 
the fear of death had put life into her last spark 
of energy. 

Now she has reached the utmost limit; muscles 
and nerves tremble, her breathing is labored, and 
black spots are dancing before her burning eyes. 


A TRAGEDY OF THE PRAIRIE 


89 


To lie down and stretch the aching limbs is just 
now the one supreme want—more important than 
life itself. 

And so she lies there in the snow when dawn 
comes, and when the coyotes cry out their greeting 
to the new day. Even at this sound she does not 
attempt to rise; her abject misery has killed even 
the instinct of self-preservation. She remains lying 
there, even when the full light of day has come. 
It is a murky day with no rift in the gray clouds, 
thru which no sun is seen; nothing but somber gray 
everywhere. Later in the day the four coyotes ap¬ 
pear, keeping in the path made by the cow. They 
Jiave slept and rested, and are ready to resume the 
hunt. The death of the calf has put new life into 
them. They follow the tracks till they reach the 
cow. 

She gets their wind before she sees them. She 
lifts her head and looks at them, seemingly with 
no emotion, as having already given up the struggle. 
Her sad eyes seem to say: “Do your worst, you 
miserable murderers.” The coyotes gather about 
her as if to take a better look before killing her. 
They treat their eyes to a sight of her last agony. 
The largest of the beasts comes so near that its 
hot breath is blown right into the cow’s nostrils. 
This seems to rouse her to a last, dying effort. With 
the trifle strength remaining she gets her hind legs 
under her, but the other legs refuse to obey. She 
makes repeated trials, but each time they fail her, 
and she must steady herself by putting her head 
down into the snow. For the coyotes this is the 


90 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


opportune time. They fasten their fangs into the 
lean shanks and tear some meat out of them while 
the poor cow is still alive. 

Then with a heart-rending groan she sinks into 
the snow, never to rise again. And the coyotes 
devour her flesh and drink her blood. 

She had lived long and learnt much, and knew 
how to care for herself in the many vicissitudes of 
life. She might now have gone on living much 
longer, had she had herself alone to care for. Her 
mother-love had caused her to give her life in the 
fight to defend her offspring. 

So in a way she died an heroic death; tho it was 
followed by no funeral, with weeping and flowers. 
Her bones were polished clean by the teeth of the 
coyotes. 

When the snow melts, her old skeleton may be 
found by some wayfarer on the prairie. An occa¬ 
sional coyote will find it and smell of it. And within 
its hearing, had the skeleton ears to hear with, the 
familiar and dreaded song of the coyotes will yet 
be heard for a long, long time. 


THE WILD HORSE 



CHAPTER ONE 


THE STALLION AND “CIRCUS JOHN” 

/^\N the plains of Wyoming not many years ago 
there still remained small bands of horses 
which had escaped capture and the branding-iron. 

The district was at that time but sparsely settled. 
The miles and miles of great irrigation ditches, 
which now change the dried up prairies into green 
fields, were still non-existent. 

At that time there were no farms excepting along 
the rivers, where each farmer could dig his own 
irrigation canals; and the rivers big enough to hold 
water all summer were few and far between. 

There still are, and always will be, great stretches 
of prairie untouched by plow or harrow; stretches 
which by reason of having no water are worthless 
even as pastures. 

In the northern part of the state the plain is 
broken up into a series of hills, the foot-hills of the 
near and the more distant mountains standing out 
against the sky. 

There are some big and some smaller patches 
of level land in among the hills, level plateaus 
bounded by nearly perpendicular walls. There are 
mounds like pyramids; between which the spring 
rains on the dry earth have carved out numberless 


94 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


narrow and deep ravines that keep their tortuous 
course down to the lower levels. 

On the whole it is a landscape than which none 
is better fitted for the beasts of the wild. Among 
the fantastically carved hills the wild animals find 
ideal shelter in their ceaseless fight with man. 

The district is built on a large scale; there is 
nothing narrow and depressing. All is grand and 
free, from the smallest hillock to the snow-capped 
peaks which in spite of the great distance stand out 
so clear against the blue sky. 

And the place is rich in animal life, herbivorous 
and carnivorous. 

It is rich also in wild-fowl, but poor in song-birds. 

It is rich in rodents and rattlesnakes, in summer 
sun and winter storms; and at all seasons it has 
a vast wealth of nature's solitude, disturbed only 
by the life of the wild, and on rare occasions by a 
lonely traveler or new settler. 

Here it was that a herd of wild horses had their 
home quarters. Once they may have been many; 
but during these later years man had been diligently 
engaged in thinning their ranks. Now and then 
some of them were captured, until now there were 
only twenty-five or thirty left. These horses had 
no great money value. They were the common 
little ponies, too light for heavy work. They were 
not fit for anything but the saddle, and out here 
at that time saddle-horses were incredibly cheap; 
tho they were used by all men, all the time, and 
everywhere. Still the number of wild horses was 
steadily decreasing. 


THE WILD HORSE 


95 


Sometimes the boys caught them merely for the 
fun of it; sometimes for use on special days, on 
which the boys competed for prizes to those most 
clever in riding horses that never had known the feel 
of leather on their back. And sometimes they were 
rounded up because some of them belonged to some¬ 
body. These animals, which ran wild nearly the 
whole year, might so easily join the herd and thus 
be lost. 

These few horses on the strip of land between 
the river and the mountains were but a small rem¬ 
nant of the great bands once so numerous on the 
plains. 

Gregarious animals always have a chief, a leader 
whom they trust and follow. Generally the leader 
is an animal which in some way has attracted at¬ 
tention, shown itself possessed of unusual courage. 
This band of horses had such a leader, a strongly 
built and finely set up light-brown stallion. 

This stallion was no longer young; sheep-herders 
and other denizens of the prairie had seen him now 
and then for many years, and more than one of 
them had wished himself the owner of the fine 
animal. 

In summer the wild horses generally kept to the 
plateaus near the mountain, but in winter they some¬ 
times came down to the banks of the river. 

“Circus-John” lives in a little cabin of round 
logs down by the river. 

The cabin has but one room and stands at the 
center of his farm, which he some years ago took 


96 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


as a homestead. The farm is not fit for cultiva¬ 
tion. But it is bordered by a creek, which runs 
dry in the summer; while not far from the cabin 
nature had hollowed out some big basins. At the 
time of the spring freshets these are filled with 
water, and there is enough of it for the sheep and 
cattle all summer. 

This is the only water-hole within a circuit of 
many miles; and its owner, Circus John aforesaid, 
thus controls the whole prairie in these parts. 

It has, probably, never entered the mind of Circus 
John that he might earn his bread by cultivating 
the soil; for in spite of his great size and strength 
there is nothing which he hates like hard work. 
His place is only four or five miles from a little 
inland town, one not on a railroad. And at this 
time and in this district four or five miles count 
for nothing. 

When John must work for others he finds some¬ 
thing not too strenuous, preferably riding or driv¬ 
ing. On his own place he does only the work abso¬ 
lutely necessary. He prepares his meals, goes some¬ 
times out pot-hunting, reads much, and sleeps more. 

In the winter he may once in a while shoot some 
beast of prey which happens to come too near for 
comfort. 

From time to time he has appropriated to him¬ 
self a few ponies. These run wild on the prairie; 
but when the creek dries up they also come to the 
water-hole by the cabin. 

When herding sheep John had often seen the 



THE STALLION COMES FIRST, GALLOPING DOWN TOWARDS 

THE WATER 


































THE WILD HORSE 


97 


little band of wild horses, which had so far man¬ 
aged to escape capture. He has seen them close 
by. Once when he rode against the wind and had 
just topped a hill, he unexpectedly came right on 
them. He has seen them far away at the edge of 
one of the many little plateaus or on top of some 
ridge. He has seen them when they are in a panic 
and gallop madly with streaming mane across the 
plains. 

And each time he has noticed their chief and 
leader, the stallion of the light brown color and 
the strong build. 

He has often wished that he might add all these 
horses to his own band; mark their untouched 
haunches with his branding-iron. He wants to sit 
in his cabin and see them come at noon to the water- 
hole. But what he wants most of all is to have 
for his own that fine brown stallion, which when 
frightened seems fairly to fly over the prairie. 

For some months in the winter John is a sheep- 
herder; keeping the sheep up under the mountains, 
where the wind sweeps the snow off the sparse fod¬ 
der. 

During these months he often sees the band of 
horses, sometimes near by, and sometimes at such 
a distance that he must use his telescope. 

Early in spring he quits his job. He has now 
definitely decided that he will catch that stallion. 

The new grass will not be eatable before some 
time in May; so he has time enough to make his 


98 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


plans. All winter the animals have been on slender 
rations, and are now lean and hungry. 

There are many ways of capturing wild horses. 
A number of men with enough horses so that they 
can have a fresh mount when necessary, may chase 
the wild horses till these can run no farther. Or 
the band may be followed more leisurely, but per¬ 
sistently, so that they have no chance to eat or 
drink or rest; and when this has been kept up long 
enough—it may be for several days—they are tired 
out and will refuse to go on. Then the men ride 
forward on fresh horses, and either lasso the wild 
ones or drive them into some enclosure. 

These methods, however, undoubtedly the best 
and most effective on a level plain over which one 
may ride safely even on a dark night, have often 
proven unsatisfactory on ground as hilly and rough 
as that chosen by this particular band for their 
stamping ground. And, moreover, these methods 
will not do in the present case, as they require a 
number of men; while John is all alone. 

The first thing which John does after reaching 
home, while trying to think out some way of cap¬ 
turing that stallion, is to round up his own ponies 
in the corral. 

Next day he drives to town for provisions and 
several sacks of oats. 

He has not decided just how he is going to catch 
the stallion; but at any rate he wants to have his 
own ponies in good condition when he goes about 
it. A horse fed on oats has much greater endur- 


THE WILD HORSE 


99 


ance than one that has been fed on grass only. Day 
and night John’s thoughts are busy with this mat¬ 
ter. Countless plans are weighed and discarded. 
They always have some flaw when he considers 
them in all their practical details. 



CHAPTER TWO 


IN THE PITFALL 

O NE day John fell in with the band of horses 
far up among the hills, near a small pond which 
was their regular drinking place. They came down 
from the hills on a slow trot, Indian file, following 
the narrow path which their own hoofs had worn; 
and the brown stallion is in the lead. 

John dismounts and lies down to look at them 
at his leisure thru his binoculars. The horses do 
not seem to fear any danger; they trot right down 
to the water. Nobody has troubled them during 
the winter, and so they have grown to be careless 
and feel safe. 

John lies there a long time looking thru the 
glasses. The horses are at ease. They walk out 
into the pond till the water reaches their knees; 
drink, lift the head and look lazily about them, and 
then drink some more. 

On the other side of the pond a herd of cows 
comes down the gentle slope. 

When the last of the horses disappears behind 
the hills John mounts his nag and rides home. 
While he had been lying out there looking at the 
horses, his plan of action had popped into his head. 

His new idea puts him in good humor; he re¬ 
joices over the beauty of nature, but especially over 


THE WILD HORSE 


101 


his own bright idea. A rabbit jumps out of the grass 
before the feet of his horse and scampers away like 
mad. Far away in the bright sunshine a herd of 
antelopes is feeding. 

Two days later John comes driving back to the 
pond. In the wagon he has his cooking utensils, 
provisions, sleeping blankets, and several other 
things. He stops behind a hill near the path of 
the horses, unhitches his own animal and ties it 
to the wagon and gives it a feed of oats. 

It is getting on toward evening; and there are al¬ 
most no signs of life stirring in the light of the 
setting sun. 

Having eaten nothing since morning, John sets 
about the work of getting supper. His oven is three 
round stones, on which he places the frying pan with 
some slices of pork and fried potatoes. At the side 
of it he plants his coffee-pot down among the live 
coals. He arranges his table-ware on top of the 
box in which he has his provisions. In a few mo¬ 
ments the still air is delighted with the aroma of 
fried pork and strong coffee. His sleeping-blankets 
are covered with canvas as a protection against 
moisture and dust. John has some old newspapers 
with him; and now he stretches himself on the piece 
vof canvas with the saddle under his head and begins 
to read. He remains lying there till twilight settles 
down over the water and the prairie. 

Out of the darkness comes the melancholy hoot 
of an owl, and is answered by the peculiar, long- 
drawn and many-toned cry of a coyote. 

At early dawn John is up, and again there is 


102 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


the smell of coffee and fried pork. Just as he has 
finished washing up his dishes the sun appears over 
the mountains far away to the east. He takes a 
spade and a pick out of the wagon and makes his 
way to the path of the horses. 

John knows that they will follow this their old 
path when they come down to drink; and he is pretty 
sure that the stallion will lead the procession. 

He finds a place at which the horses must turn 
sharply around a boulder. There he digs a big 
hole, a pitfall, which he then carefully covers with 
the branches of trees and with earth. Then he goes 
back to his wagon. 

When the afternoon sun tells him that it is near 
the time for the horses to come down to their drink¬ 
ing-place, he saddles one of his own horses and rides 
away, leading the other animal. He rides a quarter 
of a mile or so; far enough away so that his horses 
and the others will not smell one another; and still 
near enough to let him keep an eye on whatever is 
doing. 

The landscape, already being clothed in its man¬ 
tle of green, is spread out around him in picturesque 
irregularity, under a cloudless sky with a sun whose 
warmth can now be felt. 

The pond is like a bright eye in which the sur¬ 
rounding hills are clearly reflected. 

Here and there on the surface of the water is 
seen a ripple caused by a trout coming up into the 
light. But apart from this there is no life, no 
sound. 

John has been sitting here many times before this, 


THE WILD HORSE 


103 


especially when herding sheep. But the time has 
never before seemed to move so slowly, as he never 
before has been waiting so eagerly for something 
to happen. 

He no longer sits looking about him; he has no 
eye for the grandeur of nature. The longer he 
waits the more sharply are his eyes fixed on the edge 
of the hill where he had seen the horses disappear, 
and where he may expect at any moment to see them 
come back; the stallion in the lead, big and clearly 
outlined against the sky. 

At last they come. With the glasses held tight 
to his face Circus John sits there and enjoys the 
sight of them. As he had expected, the stallion 
comes first, the others filing after him till the whole 
band has rounded the hill and is trotting down to¬ 
ward the water. 

John sees it all clearly, noting especially and with 
increased admiration the supple form of the leader, 
with the long, flowing tail and mane. In imagina¬ 
tion he already sits on the back of the stallion, now 
confidently trotting down the path with no thought 
of fear or danger. For the peace of the winter 
has given the horses a feeling of security. John 
is so lost in admiration of the animal that he for¬ 
gets all else, till he sees the horses near the boulder 
marking the place of the pitfall. He is on tenter¬ 
hooks. The moment is at hand. He has difficulty 
in holding fast the glasses. The head and then the 
whole body of the stallion is out of sight behind the 
boulder, and the animal has shown no sign of sus¬ 
picion that anything is wrong. 


104 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


Then John sees the horse which followed nearest 
the heels of the leader suddenly stop and turn back. 
The others do likewise, and there is great confusion, 
soon almost hid by a thick cloud of dust. In a 
moment John is in the saddle; and frightened by 
the unexpected and painful digging of the spurs 
into its sides, the horse goes as one of sense bereft 
over the broken ground. The animals which had 
followed the stallion have during these seconds been 
surprised out of their wits. Now they see John 
and gallop madly away, till nothing is seen of them 
but a cloud of dust. In the pitfall lies the stallion, 
a prisoner for the first time in its life. It has gained 
its feet and tries to get out, but the pitfall is too 
deep. At the sight of the man the animal becomes 
desperate. Again and again, times without num¬ 
ber, it tries to get out, but all its efforts are vain. 

John sits himself on the boulder and looks at the 
stallion. His heart is touched by the animal’s fight 
for liberty; he feels sympathy with the prisoner now 
deserted by its whole band of followers. 

Still he remains sitting there; he can not leave 
the horse in the pitfall. The sun sets, and twilight 
comes upon them, but still he sits on the boulder, 
and still the horse continues its hopeless struggle. 
Not before the twilight has turned into black night 
does he go to the wagon to prepare his evening 
meal. And not till then does the captured, wild 
horse desist from its efforts to get out of the pitfall. 


CHAPTER THREE 


CAN IT BE TAMED? 

O N a day of bright sunshine in May, a week 
later, John stands looking with pride and joy 
at the captured stallion. It has been a hard and 
slow job to get the animal safely home; the stallion 
fighting all the time for liberty. During the first 
days after its capture it will allow nobody to come 
near. It tugs at the ropes with which it is tied; 
kicks up its hind feet and strikes with its front feet, 
till the stable seems about to tumble down. For 
three days the stallion had refused to taste of any¬ 
thing but water. 

It is the finest animal which John ever has seen. 
He goes into the stable to look at it at least twenty 
times a day; and often in the night also, especially 
when the horse is unruly. He never tires of ad¬ 
miring it. He rejoices like a child in expectation 
of the day on which the stallion shall at last be 
tamed; and he shall ride it into town, with the eyes 
of all men following it in wonder and admiration. 

These last three days the animal has quieted down 
somewhat. It has begun to eat; and it is not abso¬ 
lutely wild whenever John comes into the stable. 
It seems in a way to have given up the struggle. 
It seems to have seen the folly of keeping up the 
fight, and to say: “You have me; I surrender.” 


I 

106 UNDER WESTERN SKIES 

This animal is not so nervous as horses generally 
are in the beginning of their imprisonment. It does 
not cower and tremble, not even at the touch of the 
whip. John regards this as evidence that the animal 
will prove a very apt pupil. 

In the stable he puts his brand on its haunches. 
So now it has been marked on its fine skin as the 
property of man. Never again will it be wild and 
free. 

Then comes the day on which John takes it out 
for the first time to teach it the rudiments of the 
art of carrying a man on its back. There is a strong 
rope around its neck and thru the rings of thie halter, 
to which the rope is made fast with a hard knot. 
The rope is fifty feet long, and thus easily caught 
if anything should go wrong. Outside of the 
stable stands a pony that is trained to plant its feet 
firmly into the soil, and to win a tug of war against 
either cow r or horse. John knows that he can trust 
the pony as long as the ropes and straps hold. And 
they will hold; they have been carefully tested and 
examined. 

The stallion offers no resistance when John leads 
it out. John wonders at this. Can it be that the 
spirit of the stallion has already been broken? 

This time, however, John is mistaken; his joy is 
premature. The stallion came quietly out of the 
door as if in all its life it had done nothing else. 
But as soon as the feel of spring and sunshine is 
in its face the situation is changed. 

The suggestion of liberty in the fresh air, and the 
sight of the plains and distant hills, seem to stir 


THE WILD HORSE 


107 


certain memories. These are its own hills; among 
them is home, and it is going back to it. 

As soon as this instinct comes upon the horse 
the mighty muscles act in obedience to it. The 
beautiful and wise animal can remember things, tho 
it may not be able to think in the sense in which 
a man is said to think. The horse can not calculate 
results in advance. It acts on instinct only, and in 
this case with mad violence. The result is that 
the cruel rope is drawn taut, and the stallion thrown 
heavily to the ground. 

Instantly it is on its feet again; and begins to 
trot back and forth with the rope held taut between 
it and the pony, which latter animal is almost sit¬ 
ting down with forefeet planted into the soil, and 
holds the stallion fast. Soon the stallion sees the 
uselessness of its manoeuver. It stops, and stands 
still on stiff legs, with head turned toward the man 
and pony. 

John comes toward the horse with one hand on 
the rope, while in the other he has a lasso. He 
moves slowly and with extreme caution. He feels 
how the strain of the rope increases, how it quivers 
in his hand, more and more the nearer he comes. 
When the man is twenty feet away the horse makes 
a mighty spring to one side. It is afraid of the 
man; of this little thing, which has no fear, and 
which comes steadily nearer—this creeping thing 
;which it could destroy with one blow of its hoof— 
tho this thing has captured it, out there on the 
prairie, where it was in its own proper element. 

John continues to go nearer; slowly, cautiously, 


108 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


but with no wavering in his purpose. But the horse, 
expecting no good to come of it, does not desire 
any nearer acquaintance. And to make its objec¬ 
tion known, it indulges in many leaps and bounds, 
with the agility of an acrobat, threatening to break 
the rope; thus causing John to retreat. Not to ad¬ 
mit defeat. A plainsman may have trouble in sub¬ 
duing a wild horse, but he does not allow the diffi¬ 
culty to conquer him. There are many ways of 
taming horses; and if this animal proves insensible 
to kindness, it will have to be subdued by brute 
force. 

John throws his lasso on the ground in a way 
to form a loop at the place where the stallion’s fore¬ 
feet have been planted. Then he goes to one side, 
hoping that the horse may step into the loop. The 
horse again tries to get away from this persistent 
persecution; and the next moment it stands with 
both forefeet in the loop. A sudden jerk pulls the 
feet together. The startled animal tries hard to 
keep from falling; but its hoofs are tied close to¬ 
gether, and it staggers, loses its balance and falls, 
and soon thereafter it lies on the ground, securely 
bound and helpless. 

Then the hated man comes and ties something 
over its eyes, shutting out the light. But the big, 
strong animal lies there utterly powerless, trembling 
with fear and fury; while the man pats its neck and 
talks to it, and even sits down on its back. 

After a time the rope is loosened. The horse 
finds its feet free and is up with a bound, but makes 
no move to run away. It remains standing there as 


THE WILD HORSE 


109 


tho paralyzed, trembling with dread of that which 
is so strange and terrifying. Its limbs are free, 
and it stands erect and feels solid ground under its 
feet. But it holds them wide of each other and does 
not dare to move for fear of falling; for it is blind¬ 
folded and can see nothing. 

With quiet confidence John now goes over to the 
horse, with the saddle in his hand. He talks to 
the animal and tries as far as possible to quiet its 
fears. 

It remains standing as tho it had taken root; 
and when John keeps on talking to it in friendly 
tones and lays his hand on it, the skin quivers at 
the place where he touches it; and the horse shrinks 
from the touch, but does not move its feet. And 
the hand continues to rest on the same spot, no mat¬ 
ter how much the skin quivers. The hand merely 
presses down a little harder, and then gently strokes 
the skin until the horse is used to it and pays no 
further attention. While John strokes and pats it 
and thus gets it to fix its alleged mind on this one 
thing, he carefully lifts the saddle and places it 
softly on the back of the animal. The horse has 
never had anything on its back; so now it is nervous 
again, trembles, utters a smothered whinny, and 
bends its back and squirms in an effort to be rid of 
its burden. 

Thus it stands pulling back on stiff forelegs till 
its belly almost touches the ground, while the man 
straps the saddle in place. 

He straps it tight; and every time that he tight¬ 
ens it another hole the horse groans; not in pain, 


110 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


but in fear, and without moving the feet an inch 
from their place. 

Circus John has broken more than one horse in 
the course of these years in Wyoming; but either 
in an enclosure, or with someone to help him if they 
were out on the open plain. Not that he is afraid 
of being thrown, as has frequently happened. When 
he decides not to try to ride the stallion today, the 
reason is that there might be danger of his losing 
the animal. He has sat many horses; but he realizes 
that he is not one of the great masters of the art. 
He knows also that this horse will buck like the very 
mischief. And his conviction is strengthened when 
he now takes off the bandage with which the horse 
had been blindfolded. As soon as the horse is able 
to see again it begins to buck, shooting into the air 
with back bent into the arc of a circle and the head 
down between the forelegs, which are stiff as sticks 
whenever they touch the ground. As an exhibition 
of bucking, John has never seen anything to equal 
it; such incredible quickness and such jumps. He 
has never seen a horse come down with back so 
curved and with hindquarters so high. 

He is glad that he had not been so foolish as to 
try to ride it. 

It keeps up the violent exercise for several min¬ 
utes. A horse can seldom keep it up longer. 

It is necessary to throw the stallion again before 
the saddle can be taken off. 


CHAPTER FOUR 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 

/^\F all the stubborn beasts John ever had to do 
with, this stallion is the worst. It long remains 
just what it was when he first tried to saddle it; 
just as unmanageable and just as untamed. In the 
stable it is like another creature. It may stand 
there for hours as quiet as a worn-out work-horse, 
looking thru the little open window toward the hills, 
a nameless longing in the deep eyes. 

Every day for more than a month John has 
brought the horse out. And each time the old story 
has been repeated: The stallion simply will not be 
tamed. John has seen the methods used in training 
trick horses. Fie tries them on the stallion, as far 
as his humane heart will permit; but the result is 
nil. 

One Saturday in town he meets many acquaint¬ 
ances, and all of them know something of the stal¬ 
lion. Many have seen it several times; and those 
who have not seen it are familiar with its history. 

It is now late in June. The dry season has begun. 
From morning till night, day after day, the sun 
glows from a cloudless sky. 

At John’s invitation some of the men come out 
to his place on Sunday morning. Among them are 
some who whenever occasion offers compete for 


112 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


the prizes given to the best riders; men whose boast 
it is that they can ride any animal with hair on it. 
John knows that one of the men at least is a rider 
•whom no horse has been able to throw. 

The stallion is led out, examined, and admired. 
The men decide to take it over to the nearest corral 
and there give it the first lesson. There are many 
who are willing to ride it. The horse is thrown, 
and is then blind-folded and saddled. It shrinks 
from it and sags in the back when the saddle is put 
in place; but still there has been some improvement 
in its behavior. It has learnt to wait till the bandage 
is removed from the eyes. 

As it now for the first time feels the weight of 
a man on its back it sags so low that his feet almost 
reach the ground. 

“Let go,“ shouts one of them. But the rider 
takes his time, settles himself in the saddle, and 
looks to make sure that the spurs are fastened as 
they should be. Then he quietly puts out his hand 
and draws the bandage away from the eyes of the 
horse. 

The next moment the beast bounds high up, and 
comes down in a way to shake the earth; then up 
and down again and again on the same spot, at the 
rate of a jump every second. 

After the tenth jump the rider is lying on his face 
in the dust twenty feet away. The stallion stands 
still as tho frightened at what it had done, and 
makes no attempt to be rid of the saddle. Or it 
may have forgotten the saddle on getting rid of 
the rider. When this man gets to his feet again 


THE WILD HORSE 


113 


he is greeted by the others with derisive laughter. 

One of these others, who prides himself on his 
skill, is thrown in less than five seconds. A third 
young man then tries it; and he, like the others, 
is a fellow who can ride almost anything. But the 
stallion, which has muscles of iron from having lived 
its life in the open and from having so long escaped 
capture, is a little too much for them. 

From time to time there are many good riders 
who try to keep their seat on the back of this stal¬ 
lion, but none can do it. And so, naturally enough, 
the animal acquires a certain fame. Bets are made 
that this or that rider can stay on its back; and 
there is hardly any Sunday on which somebody does 
not come out to try his luck. 

Williams is one of the men who saw the stallion 
that first Sunday in the corral; Williams, who never 
has been thrown. 

He had not wanted to put his skill to test that 
day; for the stallion had already thrown three men. 
“It would not be fair,” says he; “I will ride him 
some day when he is fresh and fit.” 

He kept his promise. That is to say, he came 
again, and he staid on the back of the stallion longer 
than any other had done—a whole minute. 

“It can not be done; nobody can do it,” he cries 
with tears in his voice, while brushing the dust off 
his clothes. “Nobody can ride that infernal beast.” 

And he really seems to be right. “If Williams 
can not stay on,” the others say, “there are not many 
who can. If he can’t ride it, the thing is impos¬ 
sible.” 


114 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


Phis, of course, made the stallion still more 
famous. 

On the Fourth of July a number of riders are 
to compete for prizes in a town some twenty-five 
miles down the river. On such occasions the people 
come together from all the country round about; 
some men merely as spectators, and others as active 
competitors for the prizes. 

The committee in charge writes to John, inviting 
him to be on hand with his famous stallion. There 
will be many riders, and the management wants to 
have horses that will try their mettle and please the 
crowd. There are many horses that can give a 
fair exhibition of bucking, but none has been able 
to throw every rider; and so a new animal which 
nobody can ride will be a great attraction. 

The Fourth was a clear and scorchingly hot day. 
In the afternoon the festivities begin. There is but 
a mild interest in the rest of the program; people 
have come to see feats of skill in riding the un¬ 
tamed horses. There are many of these, and many 
riders. One by one the animals are brought out; 
and some riders are thrown, while others succeed 
in keeping their seats. 

There are certain rules obtaining in this sport. 
The competing riders must not use an ordinary 
bridle, which would interfere with the free move¬ 
ments of the horse. They use something called a 
“hackamore,” a sort of cross between a bridle and 
a halter, without any bit. And they are not allowed 
to hold on to the saddle with their hands. 

The untamed stallion is the last on the list. The 


THE WILD HORSE 


115 


spectators applaud when it is led out into the open. 
A member of the committee makes a complimentary 
speech, reciting the history of the animal, and ends 
by promising a special grand prize to the rider who 
can stay on its back. 

Many of them know the beast and will have 
nothing to do with it. Others have heard of the 
abortive attempts made by many clever riders, and 
merely look at the horse with profound respect. 

At first it seems as if nobody has the courage 
to put his skill to the test. Then a businessman of 
the town gets up and offers a substantial cash prize 
to the winner. 

A dark-skinned Mexican dismounts and offers to 
try it. 

The horse has been saddled so often that it no 
longer is necessary to throw it in order to put the 
saddle on. Sometimes the beast will even stand 
still while it is being done; generally, however, its 
eyes have to be bandaged. This time it makes no 
move while the Mexican puts the saddle on its back; 
but the moment that the man puts his foot in the 
stirrup the horse makes a violent bound. And now 
begins the hardest struggle in which man or horse 
ever has engaged. Usually the horse has been able 
to shake off its burden in three to six jumps. This 
time it makes a dozen or more jumps; and the Mex¬ 
ican still keeps in the saddle, and seems fully de¬ 
termined to stay there. At this unexpected sight 
the spectators shout encouragement to him and are 
fairly wild with enthusiasm. “Don’t give up. Now 
you have him where you want him. He will soon 


116 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


be all in.” Thus a minute goes by, the enthusiasm 
reaching every moment a higher pitch. The uproar 
in such that the hoof-beats of the horse become 
inaudible. 

But while the shouts give encouragement to the 
rider they also help to put the horse on its mettle. 
After another minute, when all expect to see the 
horse show signs of weakening, the beast still seems 
to have its spirit unbroken, and to have more fight 
in it than it had to begin with. 

Then the uproar ceases. People are too much 
excited to shout. There is no sound but the striking 
of the hoofs against the hard ground; even the 
other horses seem to be interested. 

Blood is seen to spurt from the mouth and nose 
of the rider. It is noticed that he becomes more 
pale under the dark skin, and that he reels in the 
saddle; and in another moment he lies in the dust, 
motionless and unconscious. 

He had staid in the saddle longer than any other 
had done, but even for him the horse had too 
great strength and endurance. This test settles the 
matter; nobody can ride that horse. 


CHAPTER FIVE 


OUT DRIVING 

T T is plain, then, that the stallion is not destined 

to be a saddle horse. 

The brute is an “outlaw”—which out here among 
the horsemen means a horse that can not be tamed 
—say the men who are wise to the matter; and 
John knows in his soul that they are in the right. 

“You may as well turn him loose again,” they say, 
“for some fine day he will run away whether or no.” 
John knows that they are right in this also. Yet 
he is not minded to let the stallion go. Between 
him and it there is a sort of hostile friendship. The 
horse allows him to pat it, something which no other 
man can do without causing the horse to show re¬ 
sentment. Once or twice the brute has even whin¬ 
nied in a friendly way to John when he brought 
food or water. 

As a true lover of animals, John can not help ad¬ 
miring the stubborn refusal of the beast to obey 
any man; its strong objection to being made a slave. 
He can only respect it the more for having thwarted 
all his hopes of it. 

Besides, he has been thinking of trying another 
plan. 

John is big and heavy and naturally lazy. To 
ride tires him; so when the roads permit it he 


118 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


prefers to drive. At an auction he once bought a 
light little single-seated buggy; and now in his 
mind’s eye he sees the fine and fleet-footed stallion 
between the thills. It may be as impossible to break 
the horse to harness as to the saddle; but one morn¬ 
ing John ventures to try it nevertheless. 

There are many ways of breaking a horse to har¬ 
ness. John chooses the easiest way; which is also 
the most common out in this country, in which 
horses are cheap. Among other property he owns a 
heavy lumber-wagon. To this wagon he one morn¬ 
ing hitches the largest of his ponies. This old and 
reliable animal is to be one of the team and help 
to break in the stallion to pull in double harness. 

When harnessed for the first time the stallion 
shows no fear; offers no resistance, but merely some 
mild curiosity. On the fetlock of the right fore¬ 
foot has been fastened a strong leathern strap with 
an iron ring. Around the body is another strap 
with a similar iron ring on the under side, by the 
belly-band. From the wagon seat a rope goes down 
thru this ring to the one at the fetlock. 

The stallion is hitched up without difficulty; but 
when John has settled himself in his seat, it is no 
longer such smooth sailing. 

The stallion has been saddled so often that it was 
not now afraid of the straps buckled around its 
body. But when it makes a little jump and feels 
that these straps are holding it fast, it at once loses 
control of itself and begins to rear and tear, as it 
had done before when it wished to be rid of some 
encumbrance. 


THE WILD HORSE 


119 


But the harness hampers its movements more ef¬ 
fectively than could be done by a saddle with a man 
in it. Now the animal can not stir without being 
pulled back by something, and the bridle even pre¬ 
vents it from getting the head down between the 
legs. The other horse tries to go right on as usual, 
paying no attention to the stallion; which is fright¬ 
ened by the oncoming wagon and by its vain efforts 
to get loose, and so begins to toss his head and start 
off on a run. 

As long as it keeps to the road everything is fairly 
satisfactory, even tho a little rough; but when the 
beast time and again is determined to shape its 
course across the broken prairie, John finds that it 
is time to give it a lesson. 

He sets the brake as hard as he can, calls to 
the pony to stop, and pulls at the lines with all his 
strength. With the right hand he grasps the rope 
and pulls the foot of the stallion up against the 
belly; and the animal falls—falls hard. In a few 
moments it is up again and starts off on the jump 
with the brakes set on the heavy wagon, and tow¬ 
ing the unwilling pony. 

John lets the brute run for a time, while he tugs 
at the lines the sooner to tire it out. In spite of 
everything the stallion fights as stubbornly as it did 
under the saddle. In this way they travel a mile or 
more. 

In its fear of all these strange experiences and in 
its desire to be free, the horse forgets everything 
else. It is covered with sweat, and the straps of 
the harness are bordered with foam. It breathes 


120 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


hard and moans and groans. But there is no sign 
of its being tired or intending to slow up. 

After two miles, when the stallion is flecked with 
foam, but is still going as strong as ever, John 
thinks it time to give it another lesson. He would 
rather not; but the horse leaves him no choice. He 
must resort to the cruel method of the circus. The 
horse is too old and has been running wild too long 
to be brought under subjection by kindness. It 
plainly never will be a saddle-horse; but it shall be 
broken to harness, or he is not the man called 
Circus John. He has captured it, and he will by 
some means tame it into some sort of usefulness. 

Besides, he has been thinking that it is time to 
return home. Two miles each way is far enough 
for the first drive. But to turn around he must 
first stop; and to do this he must throw the horse. 

So he pulls at the rope and at the same time 
shouts “Whoa” to the pony. This obedient animal 
settles back against the breech, and the stallion 
again is jerked off its feet and goes down in a cloud 
of dust. 

This time the brute is in no hurry as before to 
get up. It lies there for a time, breathing noisily, 
while the dust coats its wet hide. When the horse 
gets to its feet it has quieted down to some extent. 
That last fall took some of the spunk out of the 
brute. 

With some trouble John turns his team around, 
releases the brake and trots them home. Every day 
the horse is now harnessed and driven. The rope 
is soon taken off; the stallion no longer tries to run 


THE WILD HORSE 


121 


away. It shows some surprise when hitched to the 
buggy for the first time, but soon accustoms itself 
to this also. 

John has actually been able to break the stallion 
to harness; but if he comes with the saddle the brute 
is and remains untamable. 


CHAPTER SIX 


A RACE WITH DEATH 

I T is especially in the fall, when the heavy gray 
clouds hang low in the heavens, that the lonely 
plains are seen in their most terrifying loneliness. 

The skies may be lowering for days at a time; 
sun, moon and stars have been blotted out, the 
mountains have been removed, sad and gray are 
the prairies and all life. 

It is at such times that the lone settler longs 
sorely for companionship. Mayhap there comes to 
him with painful clearness the memory of brighter 
hours far, far away from the cruel monotony and 
horrible loneliness of the plains. 

None suffered more from this weather than did 
John. He is by nature sensitive; the weather means 
much to him. He is always in good humor w r hen 
the sun shines, and depressed when the grayness 
of autumn is on the land. On such days he likes 
best to stay in the house with his books. But there 
are days which no book can brighten—days so 
somber that he can not keep his mind on that which 
he is reading. So he often sits for hours looking 
disconsolately out of the window at the gray sky. 
Once in a while he slings his gun over his shoulder 
and goes out, and tramps over the prairie with no 
goal, no definite purpose; walks merely to forget 


THE WILD HORSE 


123 


himself in aimless wandering, or to escape from his 
feeling of hopeless depression. Just why he takes 
the gun with him he neither knows nor cares. When 
in this state of mind he never shoots anything—he 
simply can’t take heart to do it—not even if a wolf 
or a coyote presents a good target. 

In his want of companionship he many times a 
day goes out to the stable; where stands the stallion, 
as lonely as the man himself. All nature seems 
dead; whereas the horse is alive if nothing else. 
So it becomes John’s one and only refuge in his 
loneliness. 

The stallion, too, seems to feel the influence of 
the weather. It pays no attention when John pats 
it and talks to it. It stands still and stares thru 
the dirty window out over the prairie, and its heavy 
breathing is a moan of distress. 

In this moan there is something like a complaint; 
and John’s good sense often has a hard time of it, 
fighting down an impulse to set the horse free. 

There still are some bright days with a clear sky; 
wonderful, belated fragments of the summer. 

When no wind is blowing, these days may be 
quite warm down on the low lands; while the moun¬ 
tains, during the time in which they were hidden by 

clouds, have become white with snow. 

* 

On a bright day just before Christmas John 
brings out his buggy, hitches up the stallion and 
starts for town. He needs a number of things for 
his house-keeping; for which reason he drives to a 
larger city some twenty miles away. It is a fine 


124 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


morning; the sun just appearing over the snow- 
covered mountains that stand out against the blue 
sky. 

John is in the very best of spirits on this won¬ 
derful winter morning. He has never seen a more 
smiling day. On all sides, as far as the eye can 
reach, the prairie and the hills are as gold in the 
red sunshine, flecked here and there with white 
wherever there is a patch of snow protected by a 
clump of sagebrush. 

There has been such a long spell of cloudy 
weather that all his senses are now intoxicated by 
the change. There is music in his soul. For the 
first time in weeks he is able to look on the bright 
side of life. His ears are rejoiced by the sound 
of the hoofs against the frozen trail. There is mu¬ 
sic everywhere; in the creaking of the old wheels, 
in the scraping together of the rusty springs, in the 
stillness around him, the big and mysterious and 
infectious and dangerous stillness of the prairie. 
Without intending it, he finds himself humming an 
accompaniment to all these sounds. After being 
dammed up so long, his spirits must have an outlet. 
He catches himself in the act of singing out loud, 
and then suddenly stops. He must not disturb this 
majestic peace by obtruding his own unimportant 
self. 

The stallion keeps to the trail like an old veteran. 
It goes up the hills on a walk; but when over the 
top it breaks into a trot again of its own accord. 
And thus it goes up hill and down, hour after hour; 
and the stallion does not turn a hair, and its breath 


THE WILD HORSE 


125 


comes but little faster than when it is standing in 
its stall. 

In the early afternoon they reach the town, where 
they stay two days. There is nothing to be seen 
which John has not seen already; but it does him 
good to see and to talk with others of the human 
kind. He has been alone so long that he has al¬ 
most forgotten w T hat they are like. 

He spends the two days in talking, playing cards, 
and in treating and being treated to liquid refresh¬ 
ment. 

Many times a day he goes to the barn to make 
sure that his horse is comfortable. He has a room 
in the town’s one hotel. Toward noon on the third 
day he starts for home. 

The morning had been clear; but later on the 
sun is hid now and then behind a cloud, sailing 
slowly southward before the wind. By noon the 
sun is no more to be seen. The bright morning has 
in a few hours been changed into a dark winter 
day. 

The wind frequently shifts its direction, and is 
growing much stronger; and it begins to sing a long, 
sad song. John is lost in thought. He does not 
notice the rising wind, nor feel that the cold is be¬ 
coming more sharp. He does not hear the creak¬ 
ing of the buggy, nor the hoof-beats on the road. 
That which some days ago was music in his ears 
now means nothing to him. When his mind comes 
back from its wool-gathering the day has become 
alarmingly dark. The cloudy heavens seem to close 
in on him from every side. Some big flakes of snow 


126 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


ride by on the wind and disappear into the dark¬ 
ness. 

Then John notices how the wind is whistling thru 
the heather. This music is worth hearing—an 
aeolean harp with strings of prairie heather. The 
wind has never had a greater number of strings to 
play on, and had never played music in which there 
was a blending of so many different tones. 

The w r ind increases in strength, and the snowflakes 
fall more thickly. They fall on the warm back of 
the horse and lie there a moment before they die. 
After a time it bothers John to keep the snow out 
of his eyes; the strong wind sweeps it straight into 
his face. Then he thinks of the fearful blizzards 
which sometimes come so suddenly down from the 
mountains. 

At three in the afternoon it is nearly as dark as 
night. The whistling of the wind becomes more 
sharp. Soon it becomes a howling storm with clouds 
of drifting snow. 

The snow now falls so thick that the warmth 
of the stallion’s back can not melt it. A deep layer 
of it covers the animal from the eyes to the tail. 
Now John is sure that a blizzard, possibly one of 
the worst of its kind, will soon be upon him. The 
thought chills his blood. He knows these storms, 
which may come without warning and last for days. 

In the meantime the wind continues to rise, and 
it now howls across the plain. And the snow is 
more cold and sharp and bites into his face. When 
it comes straight from the front he is compelled to 
shut his eyes. The road, which was merely two 


THE WILD HORSE 


127 


faint wheel-tracks, has long since become invisible. 

After another half hour the storm is a real bliz¬ 
zard. It is biting cold; and John dreads to think 
of what he has before him on his long way home. 

He sits huddled down in the seat with only his 
eyes uncovered. And he might almost as well cover 
these also; for he can see nothing but the drifting 
snow. 

The stallion trots as before, up hill and down 
dale, and is now entirely white with snow. The 
going is heavy, and the stallion sweats; and the 
drops of sweat at once turn into ice. John tries to 
shape his course on the assumption that the wind 
is blowing from the same direction as before;—a 
somewhat risky assumption, for the wind may have 
veered to another quarter. 

He regrets that he had not taken one of the other 
horses; one on which he could depend. He can not 
know what this stallion may take it into its head 
to do when given a free rein. It may make for 
the mountains rather than for the stable. This is 
only a prison anyway. 

The heavy clouds which almost turned day into 
night before the storm broke, have become some¬ 
what less black. The snow, also, helps in some de¬ 
gree to dispel the darkness. After the lapse of a 
long hour or two of gloomy forebodings there 
comes the darkness, not of storm and snowclouds, 
but of night—a dismal and dangerous winter night. 

The last light of day is gone, and he has not 
seen any of the familiar landmarks. By this time 
he should have reached home. His blood runs 


128 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


cold as the conviction forces itself upon him that 
he has lost himself in these wilds. 

He continues as before to drive pretty straight 
against the wind, the stallion fighting its way be¬ 
tween the mounds of snow. However, the wind may 
have made a half-turn without giving any notice 
of it to our friend John. 

He has noticed several times that when the horse 
has a free rein it turns toward the right. He knows 
that animals are far superior to man in their sense 
of direction, and that they generally manage to find 
their way; but he is not quite sure of this stallion. 
The brute may have private reasons for going 
wrong. Besides, many horses have a decided ob¬ 
jection to going straight in the face of a blizzard. 

While John sits thinking of this there is the howl 
of a coyote near by, and it makes him shiver. Such 
a howl has never before seemed so dismal. It seems 
to affect the horse in the same way. On hearing 
its wail thru the night the stallion plunges violently 
forward. 

John happens to think of stories about people 
lost on the prairies in a blizzard. Only last winter 
a herder disappeared from his home near John’s 
cabin. He had been surprised by a blizzard and 
had sought shelter in a ravine; in which he had, no 
doubt, frozen to death. His body was found some 
days later; not his body exactly, but what was left 
of it. His bones had been picked clean by the coy¬ 
otes, that had presumably kept themselves near, 
waiting for him to die. 

The coyotes have a habit of doing this in winter- 


THE WILD HORSE 


129 


time when food is scarce. They will wait for days 
to see a famished cow lie down and die. John 
wonders if any of the brutes are following him now 
in order to be at hand in the event that something 
happens. 

The ground is more uneven than it was. The 
horse often slows up to walk over the worst places. 
John is in danger of being thrown out when the 
wheels sink down into the deepest holes. The 
springs of the buggy seem hardly able to stand the 
strain. 

John’s thoughts take a new turn. Suppose that 
some accident should happen to the buggy? It is 
old and rickety. What will become of him if. ... ? 
Before he has reached the end of this thought there 
is the howl of the wolf heard above the storm. The 
horse is startled and sets off on a canter which 
threatens at any moment to overturn and wreck 
the buggy. 

It is all that John can do to keep his seat, and 
at the same time keep his hold on the reins. The 
buggy creaks in every joint as it is thrown from 
side to side when bumping over the hummocks. 

Then something breaks; and before he has time 
to think of it—he is in the snow, being dragged thru 
and over the drifts. He can see nothing. The 
snow has closed his eyes and choked up his nose 
and mouth. Some remnants of the buggy still are 
in evidence; while he instinctively keeps his hold on 
the reins. 

Strangely enough, the horse soon slows up. John 



130 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


tries to rise, but can not. He has sprained his right 
ankle. 

So has happened that which he feared most of all. 
He has lost himself in a blizzard on the plains at 
night, with a useless foot and a horse which nobody 
can ride. 

The first thing that he does is to fasten the reins 
around his body. Then he crawls over to the horse. 
By leaning against it and pulling himself up by the 
harness he succeeds in getting to his feet; tho on the 
right one he can not stand. With much trouble he 
frees the horse from the wreckage of the buggy. 
Just then a wolf howls again near by, and a coyote 
answers from a distance. 

Both John and the horse look behind them, and 
see two dark forms following like shadows in their 
tracks. Are they after him? He has a revolver, 
but dares not use it for fear of frightening the 
horse. 

The wolves keep close to him. They do not 
howl; and they sneak close to him with noiseless 
feet. The horse wants to get away; and John re¬ 
quires all his strength and weight to hold it. 

The wolves become more inquisitive, and at last 
their impudence is intolerable. John draws his re¬ 
volver and sends a ball right between the luminous 
eyes of the nearest beast. The horse again makes a 
break to get away, but is held tight. 

The situation seems desperate. The storm does 
not relent, but shrieks weirdly thru the night. 

The horse is John’s only hope. If he tries to 
ride and is thrown he will be done for. Is this to 


THE WILD HORSE 


131 


be the end? Is his flesh to be eaten by these beasts, 
his bones to be picked and scattered for miles per¬ 
haps over the prairie? 

His sprained ankle pains him more and more. 
He is tired—deadly tired. His mind runs on the 
homely comforts of his poor cabin, with a crackling 
fire and the smell of fried pork in the evening air. 
Had he been there now he would, as so often be¬ 
fore, have thrown himself down on the bed while 
the food was cooking. To lie there with closed 
eyes, enjoying the smell of strong coffee, hearing 
the coyotes howl in the storm outside, to feel the 
blessed heat of a roaring fire on the hearth;—all 
this now seems to him the very highest summit 
of well-being. A dream, probably, which he does 
not expect ever to dream again. 

How good it would be to sit down and rest for 
a time. But then he remembers the herder of last 
winter, who must have felt the same way, and had 
then sat down and fallen asleep for good and all, 
and the coyotes had picked his bones clean. 

John comes back to the world of reality on hear¬ 
ing the horse draw a sharp breath and snort noisily 
at the smell of something of which it is afraid. He 
turns his head in the same direction as the horse, 
and sees four or five dark forms sneaking close to 
them—bloodthirsty, noiseless as shadows. 

Then John determines to try the impossible: to 
ride the horse which nobody can ride. It is his last 
chance. If they remain standing here, both he and 
the horse will freeze to death. Besides, he will 
soon no longer be able to hold the horse; it will 


132 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


surely get away from him when the wolf comes 
nearer. So he takes a strong hold of the hames 
and hoists himself up, expecting every moment that 
the stallion will bound away from under him. Never 
in his life—at any rate, never since he became a 
man—has he been so near to offering up a prayer. 
In his heart he promises the horse its liberty if it 
does not now throw him. 

With much trouble he has at last climbed to 
the stallion’s back. To his great surprise and de¬ 
light the horse stands still while he settles himself 
in position; then it begins to walk and shortly there¬ 
after breaks into a trot, and then into a hard gal¬ 
lop across the prairie; and John is whirled away 
in a cloud of snow. The stallion makes no attempt 
whatever to throw him. 

Strange as it may seem, John has no time to think 
of these things; he is fully employed in keeping his 
seat. He holds on to the hames, so that his hands 
ache in their mittens; while the stallion gallops with 
reckless abandon thru the blinding snow and over 
the dangerous ground. 

After an hour or so it strikes John that he is on 
familiar soil. These hills and valleys seem old 
friends. The narrow bed of a dry creek makes his 
heart to leap within him. Still he would best not 
rejoice too soon; he must first make sure that there 
is no mistake. For he feels these hills and ravines 
rather than sees them. It is not till the horse stops 
before the door of the stable that he dares to re¬ 
joice in the certainty of being saved. He leads the 
horse into the stall, rubs it well down with a wisp 


THE WILD HORSE 


133 


of hay, covers it with two heavy blankets, gives it 
drink and fodder, and beds it down with a big arm¬ 
ful of straw. Not till then does he leave it and 
hobble into the cabin to take some care of himself. 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


A PROMISE REDEEMED 

T HE storm lasted three days. During these 
days John gives the best of care to the horse 
that had saved his life. He gladly goes to any 
amount of trouble to make the horse comfortable, 
and nothing which he has of food is too good for it. 

As it stands in the stable dry and warm, while 
the storm howls and the snow sweeps past the little 
window, the horse seems to appreciate all this care 
devoted to it. 

On the fourth day the sun was again on duty. A 
wonderful, glorious day! As far as the eye can 
reach the rolling plain is covered with a shining 
mantle of snow, now glittering in many colors. At 
intervals an aspiring sagebrush lifts its head and 
stands sedate and solemn as a sentinel looking out 
over the field of snow. And over in the distant 
whiteness is the giant face of the mountain ridge; 
across which there runs a black band: the belt of 
forest, which is the only dark thing in the midst of 
all this whiteness. 

In spite of the glorious day the heart of John 
is heavy. He had promised himself to set the stal¬ 
lion free; and today he must redeem this promise. 

With all its faults John has come to love this 
horse. And now that he must part with it, he loves 


THE WILD HORSE 


135 


it all the more. Is there no way out of it? No; 
he must not lead himself into temptation. He must 
keep his promise. 

So with heavy heart he goes to the stable to 
give the horse its last feed. The horse also is ex¬ 
cited; it has felt the change in the weather. When 
he now turns it loose, free of rope and halter, it 
will never come back. 

He goes into the cabin and prepares his break¬ 
fast. But he can not eat; nothing tastes exactly 
right. 

Towards noon he goes out to the stable to ful¬ 
fil his promise. The stallion is pulling at the halter, 
trying to get loose. 

John goes over and pats the animal, fondly and 
long, before he unties the rope. In the door he 
stops to take the halter off. He looks into the 
beautiful eyes, and fondly rubs its cheek against 
his own. He pats it, but can not talk; he is too 
near the verge of tears. At last he takes the halter 
off and lets it drop; and for the first time since its 
capture the horse is free of rope and strap, free as 
it once had been. 

It walks some steps, nosing the snowdrifts, turns 
once or twice as if in search of the best place, and 
then lies down and rolls over several times. Then 
it gets up and shakes itself vigorously and goes 
slowly away, stopping now and then to smell the 
tufts of heather. 

John stands there looking at it, and remains 
standing even long after it has disappeared behind 
the hills. 


136 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


Then he goes in and sits himself down more 
lonesome than ever before. He has lost a good 
friend—his best friend. 

But in the evening when he stands in the twilight 
preparing his supper, he has a great surprise. He 
hears a noise at the door of the stable and sees the 
horse, which wants to get in. 

He hurries out and lets the animal into the stable, 
and gives it oats and hay and a blanket, and beds 
it down with clean straw. 

Now begins a new life for the horse. It is never 
put to work. It is free, and goes and comes without 
let or hindrance. When the weather is bad it stays 
in the stable. And so the winter goes, and the 
spring is come. 

John sees the springtime on the prairie, now turn¬ 
ing green; and he hears it at night when the coyotes 
call to one another, singing the songs appropriate to 
this season of love. 

The snow on the low lands has melted; only on 
the mountain sides it still lies glittering in the sun. 

The stallion still leads its free life, going and 
coming with none to hinder. But as the air grows 
warmer, and the fine blades of grass begin to reach 
up thru the soil, and the days become long and 
bright, the horse feels the fever in its blood. It is 
lonesome; there is something wanting. And it 
makes longer and longer excursions into the wild. 
With increasing distress John notices that the horse 
no longer is so prompt in coming home at night. 

First it is gone for two whole days, then for 






AT LIBERTY AGAIN 





THE WILD HORSE 


137 


three; and then at last one warm day it goes out in 
the morning—and never comes back. 

Presumably it went back to its old stamping 
grounds, back to life and liberty; back to its harem 
among the mountains, the memory of which came 
back to the animal when the fever of springtime 
was in its blood. 



BESS 





WISER THAN MAN 


r> ess is a line and kind and lazy dark-brown 
mare that I used to drive; with Julie, a super¬ 
annuated and ugly and bony and capricious mule, 
as the other member of the team. My comrade 
Niland was the owner of both. 

It was a winter of the period when we had a 
financial crisis. The hard times affect us also; and 
so we do not hesitate, when the opportunity offers, 
to go up into the mountains to cut timber on a con¬ 
tract with a lumber dealer in the nearest town. 

It is in the middle of January. For several rea¬ 
sons we must travel as light as possible. Our whole 
outfit consists of a little tent, the necessary tools, 
cooking utensils, sleeping blankets, some books with 
which to while away the stormy days, and the pro¬ 
visions for ourselves and the team. On the way up 
to the camp the load was almost too heavy any¬ 
how. 

We started out one morning at earliest break of 
day; a cold and clear morning, with one bright star 
still twinkling in the sky, and the moon just going 
down. Niland is the cook, while I am the driver. 

I have been away for some time, and have but 
now come back from the cities. How good it seems 
again to sit here with the lines in my hands, listen¬ 
ing to the creaking wagon-wheels on the frozen 
road. How beautiful and still everything is in the 


142 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


half-darkness and the snow of the woods bordering 
the river which we must cross. On the other side 
of the river are the first foothills, the secure foun¬ 
dation of the mountains. 

It is gray dawn. The mountain towers before 
us, cold and white, the monotony of the snow-fields 
relieved here and there by a dark patch of forest. 
The wagon pulls hard. Bess and Julie breathe 
heavily and send clouds of steam up into the cold 
air; but they climb hill after hill without stopping 
to rest. 

Once in a while a rabbit starts up and scampers 
away; or a coyote is heard to howl a welcome to the 
dawning day. 

The sun rises majestically over the snowy ridge. 
It pours a bounteous flood of light on the forests, 
gilds the fields of snow, and gently caresses the 
bare plains. 

By midday the air is pleasantly warm. Now the 
mountain stands out distinctly, bold and command¬ 
ing. The many ravines with which the face of the 
mountain is scarred are clearly seen. It is to one 
of them that we are going. There are the cedars, 
and them we are to cut down. 

In the middle of the afternoon we are there. The 
weather up among the mountains is somewhat un¬ 
certain. Just as we have put up our tent we notice 
two small black clouds coming up from the north¬ 
west. 

As I have mentioned, Niland is the cook, and I 
take care of the team. We have found a sheltered 


BESS 


143 


spot for our camp; but there is a disadvantage in 
that there is no water. Water is scarce here any¬ 
how at this season of the year. For cooking we use 
snow. Usually there is a creek at the bottom of 
every ravine; but now all are dry, so that the only 
convenient watering place is a spring some three- 
quarters of a mile from our camp. It is my business 
to water the team while Niland prepares the supper. 

We have no saddle with us; wherefore a look at 
Julie’s sharp spine determines me to choose Bess as 
my riding-horse. 

Down to the spring it is a rolling, broken country, 
sparsely covered with grass and coarse heather; 
with round cobble-stones on which the horses slip; 
with countless crooked ravines, in which there is 
water only when the snow is melting, or when it 
rains. 

Gray clouds cover the whole sky toward the 
northwest when I set out for the watering place. 
The sun is just sinking beneath the horizon, and 
“all the air a solemn stillness holds.” 

There is something threatening in this stillness; 
something not easily explained. Something of crush¬ 
ing power seems to be in the air; I feel it very 
strongly as I ride down the trail. It is this peculiar 
feel of the air before a snow-storm, not exactly cold, 
but big with mysterious possibilities; so that I feel 
it as a chill down the spine. We make but slow 
progress. It goes up and down; and at many points, 
especially where the spring freshets have carved 


144 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


deep ditches down the hillsides, we are compelled 
to make long detours. 

Neither Bess nor Julie nor I have been here be¬ 
fore. Niland had from the tent pointed out the 
direction. Near the spring a small tree stands alone 
in its glory; but the lay of the land is such that I see 
the tree only at intervals. It does not make much 
difference anyhow; when the animals are thirsty 
they will find water if there is any. I have put no 
bridles on them; only halters. The mare is afraid 
of the slippery stones and is very careful how she 
goes. So we do not get there as soon as I had ex¬ 
pected. 

The grayness in the northwest is spreading out 
over the heavens; it has nearly reached the zenith. 
I begin to take note of certain landmarks, in order 
to have something to go by should darkness over¬ 
take me on my way back to camp. 

A gentle breeze stirs the stillness. It pulls half¬ 
heartedly at the heather and the dry grass, and then 
dies down. It is followed by strong gusts of wind, 
veering gradually from the northwest to the north, 
and the northeast, and they become a storm. This 
now sweeps with a dull sound over the hills, and be¬ 
comes colder and colder. When we reach the 
spring, all the heavens are a somber gray. 

The wind no longer comes in gusts, but blows 
steadily out of the north, bringing with it thru the 
waning light some fine particles of snow. Plainly 
the storm will soon be upon us. 

So, as soon as the animals have slaked their thirst, 
I set out for the camp, which I can barely see thru 



I 




BESS” FOLLOWS ME RELUCTANTLY 







BESS 


145 


the thick haze. We now have the wind straight 
against us; and it is growing stronger, and the snow 
more blinding. In a few minutes all the landmarks 
have disappeared. I keep the horse with its head 
against the wind. T he weather grows w r orse, the 
storm turning into a blizzard. I have never seen 
the air more thick with snow. It seems a solid wall 
before me, a moving wall of snow. 

It took long to get down to the spring, and now 
our progress is slower still. I feel sure that we are 
going in the right direction; and therefore I am 
taken by surprise when Bess turns off to the left, so 
that we have the wind from the side. What can it 
mean? Of course I know that a horse can keep 
the right direction better than any man can do it; 
but I also know that animals object strongly to go¬ 
ing straight against a storm. 

I look for Julie, but the mule is not in sight. 

When the wind is at its worst I have a hard time 
of it to keep my seat on the back of the mare. We 
come to one of the numerous and many-armed 
creek-beds; and I dismount and lead the animal. I 
think that she turned off to the left merely to avoid 
the snow driving right into her eyes. So when I now 
follow an arm of the ravine farther to the right, we 
should again be going toward the camp. 

There is deep snow down in the ravine, and the 
drifts are growing; but we are well sheltered down 
there, and the storm goes over our heads. 

We do not get on fast. My limbs are stiff with 
cold, and Bess follows me most unwillingly. At 
times she stops short and wants to turn around, but 


146 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


comes on again when I pull at the rope and speak 
kindly to her. So we go on till I am warm. We 
reach the end of the ravine and must climb out of it 
and get back into the snowstorm. I again climb to 
the back of the mare. 

By the aid of the halter and rope I try to hold 
the beast straight in the face of the wind, but Bess 
does not agree with me, and soon again begins to 
fall off from the course. Repeatedly I force her to 
take my way; and just as often she carries me her 
way, and then she goes much faster. When I direct 
her course she makes haste slowly; seems to think 
that it is a funeral procession. Had it not been for 
the stubborn disposition of the mare we should now 
have reached the camp according to my calculations, 
and I am beginning to lose patience. The limit is 
reached when she stops short up on a ridge and re¬ 
fuses to go on. My temper is ugly, but I dare not 
show it. Having no saddle and bridle, I am help¬ 
less to control the beast. 

My temper gets the best of me anyhow, and I 
give her a kick in the side. She starts forward for 
some steps in the direction I want her to go, and 
then turns off in the direction which she herself 
wants to go. 

I scold her and pull at the rope, which I have tied 
around my frozen wrist, in order to stop her. 

My thighs seem to be dead from the hard work 
I have had to keep myself on the back of the mare. 
I am angry, and swear that I would force her to 
obey me, if I only had the saddle and bridle. As 
the case stands, I am compelled to temporize. So 


BESS 


147 


I talk gently to her. My hands are numb with cold. 
I dismount, and warm them, putting them under her 
mane; and while patting her neck and nose I con¬ 
trive to get the rope into her mouth; and a half 
turn around the jaw does the feat. Again I must 
walk for a time to whip up the circulation in my 
stiffened limbs. I make but slow progress, for Bess 
holds back. However, I am able to drag her after 
me; for that half turn of the rope pinches her the 
harder when she pulls against it. And so we go 
on for a time. 

It is exasperating business to walk into the teeth 
of a snowstorm and pull a stubborn horse; and sev¬ 
eral times I am almost overcome by the desire to 
tan her hide. But I go no farther than to jerk hard 
at the rope; which merely makes the situation worse. 
She stops and lifts her head and begins to walk 
backward. 

How long we kept this up I do not know; but I 
do know that the distance we have traveled from 
the spring must be three or four times the distance 
to the camp, had that infernal mare but kept the 
right course. 

As I am beginning to feel warm I again climb 
to the back of the mare. She refuses to budge; ab¬ 
solutely will not move in the direction on which I 
must insist. The situation is desperate, and I lose 
my temper. All things have an end, they say; and 
I now find that this is true of my patience. 

The piercing howl of a coyote near by shakes our 
nerves, and the mare almost jumps right from under 
me. My long suppressed anger is let loose. I dig 


148 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


my heels hard into her flanks and beat her with the 
end of the rope. She makes a jump and is off 
straight against the storm, fairly flying thru the 
drifting snow. 

The coyote howls again, and Bess goes all the 
faster. I try to hold her rein, but I am kept busy in 
keeping myself from being thrown. She strikes 
sparks out of the stones with every jump. We go 
over one ridge after the other, across dry creek- 
beds and thru brush, where she might easily stum¬ 
ble and break her own neck and mine. I may expect 
this to happen at any moment. 

At first I thought only of the question, how I was 
to get free of her if she should fall. Then I felt 
a strong impulse to throw myself off her back at 
once and thus put an end to this uncanny ride. But 
no, it will not do. What chance would I have in the 
long winter night, with the coyotes on all sides, and 
without even a pocket-knife with which to defend 
myself? 

While I am unwillingly taking this wild ride thru 
snow* and storm, and while my limbs and thighs are 
gradually becoming more numb, and my hands are 
cramped from holding on to the rope and the mane 
of the mare; there are many memories that cross my 
mind, like flashes of lightning across the heavens. 
I remember my comrade. No doubt he has the hot 
supper dishes out and is waiting for me. He must 
think that I have been gone altogether too long; 
and if the mule has reached camp he may be up on 
the hill lighting a fire to guide me home. 

Unpleasant as my situation is, I can not help 


BESS 


149 


smiling at the idea. A signal fire in weather like 
this! I would have felt it before seeing it. 

I have no time to calculate our course by noting 
the direction of the wind; I have enough to do in 
keeping my seat. 

Then suddenly I see—what is it? A glow of 
light; the glow of a dying fire on the top of the ridge 
which we had just now crossed. 

The canter changes into a trot. We go down a 
hill, and my leg brushes a perpendicular wall of 
rock; and in another second we are at the bottom of 
a ravine. Then my eyes are gladdened by a light 
shining dimly thru the canvas of our tent. 

And in the shelter of the stone wall, by the side 
of the wagon and a bundle of hay, stands Julie 
taking nourishment. Thank heaven, we are at 
home. 

I am not able to sleep that night. High above 
the ravine the storm still shrieks. Once in a while 
I hear the stamping of the mule or the mare. I lie 
thinking of the events of the evening, of human 
reason as against horse sense. I had pitted my 
knowledge against the instinct of the mare, and had 
been ingloriously defeated. She grew tired of my 
stubbornness, and took matters into her own hands 
—or her own feet, I should say. And thereby she 
saved my life. 












SHEEPDOGS 



/ 




SPORT” AND “MIDGET 











CHAPTER ONE 


SPORT AND MIDGET 

M ANY kinds of dogs may be used for the herd¬ 
ing of sheep; but the collies are the best 
breed, and for that reason command the highest 
price. 

In the states in which the sheep industry has a 
leading place, much trouble is taken to breed the best 
dogs. For these must be relied on to do most of 
the work. They are a prime necessity to the herder 
and the owner. 

The herding of sheep has become the natural 
and proper business of these dogs. They were 
born among the sheep; they see sheep as soon as 
they open their eyes, and they have heard them even 
before they could see. And the progenitors of these 
dogs have lived and earned their food for genera¬ 
tions as sheepdogs. 

When I became a sheep-herder I was given two 
dogs as my helpers. One was a male of medium 
size called Sport. He was long-haired, and deep 
black all over except for a shade of brown on the 
belly and down near the paws. The leading strain 
in him was that of a sheepdog; but his shortened 
head was evidence that the strain was not pure. 

My other dog was a diminutive female with the 


154 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


appropriate name of Midget She looked like a 
fox, only somewhat more yellow, or rather like a 
coyote; and to this day I believe that there was 
some coyote blood in her veins. 

The temperament of the sheepdogs will deter¬ 
mine the work for which the individual dog is best 
fitted. One that has a friendly nature and will not 
bite is used in herding the ewes that have lambs. 
One with a more polemical nature is put to watch 
the unruly yearlings, which sometimes must be 
handled more roughly. The biggest and most pug¬ 
nacious dogs are put to the task of looking after 
the old rams. 

Sport belonged to the middle class; so he was 
placed with the three thousand yearlings in my care. 

In value as a sheepdog also he was merely an 
average dog; not one of the worst, and very far 
from one of the best. He was a dog of many 
moods; and these had to be taken into account 
when he was put to work. 

In the cool morning he was ready for any kind 
of a job. When it was cold the yearlings would get 
up, and start out at full speed. I could not follow 
them on foot; and so I sent the dogs after them. 
When these felt disposed for the exercise they 
would keep near me and look me in the eyes, wait¬ 
ing for the signal to go. And when I gave the sig¬ 
nal with a movement of the hand they would go 
as fast as they could. 

Sheepdogs have been trained to obey signals, and 
not wait for spoken orders. All herders use the 


SHEEPDOGS 


155 


same signs; so it makes no difference if the dogs 
often change masters. If we signal with the right 
hand the dog will go around to the right side of the 
flock of sheep, and will go to the left if we signal 
with the left hand. The dog occasionally stops and 
looks back. If the herder stands with both arms 
stretched out from the shoulders the dog will stand 
and wait. If the heather is too high for the dog 
to look over it, the dog will stand up on its hind 
legs or leap high in order to see its master or his 
signals. If the herder lowers one hand and signals 
with the other, the dog will go on; while if he low¬ 
ers both at the same time, the dog will come back. 
I have seen a thorobred collie sent clear out of sight 
by a herder standing on a boulder and signaling 
with a yellow oilcloth coat. 

But in the middle of the day, with the hot air 
fairly sizzling, when Sport was taking his siesta be¬ 
hind a sagebrush, with the tongue hanging far out, 
he was not so willing to do my bidding. He then 
never looks expectantly into my eyes; he would be 
interested in something else, or he would lie with his 
eyes closed when I signaled to him. At such times 
it was only by talking to him that I could induce 
him to look up. 

When it was then made plain to him that he must 
go out on duty he would start on a lazy trot; and 
then stop and look at me, hoping that I would give 
him the signal to come back. When I ordered him 
on he would go, but as slowly as he well could, and 
come to a stop every three or four rods. 


156 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


If I shouted to him in an angry tone he might 
get up a little more speed till he was out of sight. 
Sometimes he would do the errand on which he had 
been sent, and then come sneaking back from some 
other direction. Or he might not come back, but 
hide himself somewhere in the shade of a hillock of 
heather. Nearly always he would follow at my 
heels when I went for a walk. But it sometimes 
happened that he kept away from me when he 
thought that he was not in favor; and then on sev¬ 
eral occasions I did not see him again before night. 

However, the caprice of Sport was as nothing 
compared with the whims of Midget. This little 
fox-like animal had the most impulsive nature with 
which I ever have had to deal. If she was in the 
mood for it she would be scrupulously obedient. I 
could then send her farther afield than I could send 
Sport. But I could not drive her to do anything if 
she would rather not. She would then run away, 
especially in the early morning; and I would not see 
her again before I came home at night and found 
her taking her ease under the wagon. 

When there were strained relations between us 
she never would make the first move to bring about 
a reconciliation. She would slink by me like a little 
fox, and pretend not to see me. When I came out 
with her supper she would not look up, and would 
not move till I had climbed back into the wagon. 
Even then she would watch the window at the end 
of the wagon and would lie still if I was looking at 
her. Midget was a peculiar canine. I never could 


SHEEPDOGS 


157 


become as familiar with her as with Sport. She did 
not like to be petted and fondled. She quietly went 
her lonely way; she was like a wild animal only 
half-tamed, or like a coyote born in captivity. 


CHAPTER TWO 


SPORT’S ARCH ENEMY, “SATAN” 
MONG my three thousand unruly yearlings 



there were twenty black sheep, or “markers.” 
When occasion offers we count these to make sure 
how many if any have strayed from the fold. 

About half of our “markers” were old rams 
which had been many times on the mountain pas¬ 
tures; and now when the warm weather came in 
June, and the grass began to wither on the prairies, 
they began to long for the hills, and if given a 
chance they would run away. 

This made the work all the harder for both me 
and the dogs. There was one great and robust ram, 
which I had named “Satan,” and which was especial¬ 
ly troublesome. He was strong, and as fleet as a 
deer. When we were off our guard he would set 
out for the mountains, always followed by some of 
the yearlings. Some of the rams had bells; but 
Satan, who needed it most, did not. There was a 
spare bell in the wagon; and the day after I had 
caught the old sinner nearly a mile from the flock 
with a couple of hundred yearlings at his heels, I 
decided to hang a bell around his neck. 

It was noon and scorching hot. I sent the dogs 
to round up the sheep on some level ground near 
the wagon and got them packed in a close bunch. 


SHEEPDOGS 


159 


But Satan was wiser than I and the dogs together. 
He always had a bad conscience and kept in the mid¬ 
dle of the flock. He was so much larger than the 
yearlings that it was an easy matter for him to 
jump over them or to push his way between them. 

But Sport knew Satan as well as I. He had not 
forgotten all the trouble which the ram had given 
him on these hot days. So now the dog was thrist- 
ing for revenge; and he forgot the heat when it 
dawned on him that I was on the warpath against 
that infernal ram. 

While Midget kept the sheep together, I and 
Sport went right in among them. And when Sport 
was fully assured that the campaign was directed 
against his arch-enemy, he put his whole soul into 
the work before him. 

They jumped over the backs of the others, the 
ram in the lead and the dog right after him. The 
ram tried to stay in the thickest of the bunch; but 
Sport and I managed to get him out to the out¬ 
skirts of it, and then out on the level away from 
the other sheep. 

When the ram found himself alone he ran like a 
deer, with the dog like a wolf at his heels. 

It did not take Sport long to catch his enemy and 
lay hold on him; while I and Midget followed as 
fast as we could. Sport had fastened his teeth into 
a forefoot of the ram just below the knee; but the 
ram was strong and pulled the dog with him nilly- 
willy. 

The nearer I came the harder did the ram try 
to get loose. He walked backward dragging the 


160 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


dog, which was settled back on his haunches and 
hanging on like grim death to the ram’s leg. 

“Hold him, Sport, hold him,” I shouted. 

When I was right by them Satan tried his very 
utmost to shake the dog oh. He turned so quickly 
that the dog described a circle around him, still 
hanging on by his teeth. 

And yet the ram would not surrender; he made a 
desperate fight for liberty. Then it was that Sport 
showed what he could do when put to it. He let go 
his hold on the leg; and quick as lightning he caught 
the ram over the nose and gave him a sharp jerk 
forward and then to one side; and the ram, not pre¬ 
pared for this manoeuver, was lying on his back 
with all his feet in the air. 

I fastened the bell around the ram’s neck and let 
him go. 

It is in cold weather that the sheep-herder has 
his hands full. 

In warm weather the sheep are lazy. They 
move slowly, put their heads under the heather and 
remain there as long as there is a blade of grass to 
be found. Not till then do they move on to the 
next bush. If it is very warm they will lie down 
near the watering place and not move for hours. 

One cloudy day at noon they would not come 
down to the waterhole. I wanted to go to the 
wagon and get my dinner; but it was some dis¬ 
tance away, and I did not dare leave the sheep be¬ 
fore they had lain down. Usually a flock of sheep 
will lie down to rest after it has been “turned” a 
few times. When I had ordered the sheep right 


SHEEPDOGS 


161 


about once or twice I induced the yearlings to lie 
down—all but a few of them, who with Satan in 
the lead were determined to go on. 

At last I persuaded them also to lie down, and 
then I went toward the wagon, and they were soon 
lost to sight. 

About half way to the wagon was a hill from 
which I should be able to see them. Not being quite 
confident that they were to be trusted I went up to 
the top of this hill to make sure. The sheep were 
lying where I left them;—all excepting the black 
ram, who with a few followers again was far on 
his way east to the mountains. 

Sport saw them also and went joyously after them 
when I gave him the signal. Had Sport been a first 
class sheepdog I might have let him watch the sheep 
while I went to my dinner, but that was out of the 
question. 

The ram and his misguided followers did not see 
the danger before it was upon them. I could see 
how they suddenly turned, and how they raised a 
cloud of dust on their way back. When the dog had 
done his errand he, also, came home. 

However, the ram soon started off again, and 
Sport again went after him. This time the ram was 
alone; and the dog made something more of an af¬ 
fair of it, following the ram far afield. 

Now I felt sure that the ram would stay quietly 
by the fold. But as I was about to descend the hill, 
and turned to look once more at the sheep, I saw 
the ram again walking to the east, this time with 
leisurely steps as tho everything were all right. 


162 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


Tho the air was chilly, Sport seemed to think 
that I was asking too much of him. He growled a 
little when ordered to fetch that ram back once 
more; but having no choice in the matter he went. 

This time Satan saw the dog in good season, and 
was able to get back to the fold before the dog 
reached him, thus escaping any maltreatment on the 
part of Sport. I sat a long time waiting for the 
dog, but he did not come. 

While I was sitting there and straining my eyes 
I again noticed that ram. He was marching as be¬ 
fore with long steps and dignified mien, as tho 
owning in fee simple all the liberty in the world. 
But there was put a sudden end to this proud and 
self-confident march; for Sport, who had been lying 
in wait behind a bush, dashed out and attacked the 
ram with the fury of a wild beast. 

Sport would seem to have made up his mind to 
settle this matter now for good and all. For he 
went at the ram like an avalanch, and returned to 
the attack again and again, with no let-up before 
the ram was among the other sheep, where he 
should be. For some days after this the ram made 
no farther trouble. 

Sport had one of the worst faults which a sheep¬ 
dog can have in that he had the instincts of the 
hunter; and nothing would cure him of it. To him 
sheep herding was work, while rabbit hunting was 
fun; and his guiding principle in life was: pleasure 
first. 

If while on duty he saw a rabbit, he would at once 
make after it, and forget all about the sheep, often 


SHEEPDOGS 


163 


going right thru the flock. He never caught the 
rabbit; but that seemed to be of minor importance. 
When he again saw one he made after it with as 
much zest as ever. 

However, rabbits were not his only obsession. 
There were many other animals, also, on the 
prairie; and Sport considered it his duty to examine 
carefully every hole and burrow. 

The one animal which he did not chase was the 
coyote. When a coyote appeared in the offing, 
Sport either closed his eyes or turned his head some 
other way. 


CHAPTER THREE 


A DEATH STRUGGLE 

T N the beginning of July we moved up into the 
mountains. The place was more than forty 
miles from our winter and spring grazing grounds, 
and there was almost no water along the way. 

Stubb was foreman and had the provision wagon; 
and he followed the banks of the river, while I with 
the sheep took the short cut across the hills. He 
pointed out to me a landmark which I was to keep 
in sight, and where we were to meet in the evening. 

The first night we camped by a small creek. The 
sheep were tired with a long day’s march and settled 
down to rest as soon as the sun had gone down. 

Next morning we were oft before daylight. 
There was little grass, and little time to eat what 
little there was. All the creek beds we saw were 
dry. That night we found no water. The third 
day was like the second: nothing to eat but shrivelled 
grass, and very little of that. All day I was com¬ 
pelled to make use of the dogs to drive the sheep 
forward. In a canteen slung over my shoulder I 
had water enough for myself and the dogs. It was 
a very trying day. This was a hard road to travel; 
steep hills and long ridges and stretches of plain 
cut thru with deep and all but impassable ravines, 
and over it all the blistering rays of the July sun. 


SHEEPDOGS 


165 


As the sun went down I saw* a thin column of smoke 
against the evening sky. 

This was Stubb’s signal. Again we spent the 
night at a place where we found no water. We 
were obliged to stand guard over the sheep all 
night to keep them together. They would not lie 
down. All night they walked about and bleated for 
water. Sport and I kept watch till midnight, when 
we were relieved by Stubb and Midget. 

Long before dawn we were on the march again. 
It was a cool morning, and I made all possible haste 
while this coolness lasted. A couple of hours be¬ 
fore midday the sheep began to smell water. We 
were on the top of a hill with a gentle slope down 
to a creek. At intervals along the banks were some 
old and gnarled trees. To us this was an oasis in 
the desert. 

Before long all the sheep were racing down the 
slope. 

In many things the sheep are a strange folk. 
When they come near a spring or creek they break 
into a wild run. All want to be first. I had been 
left far behind when they reached the creek. 

When we had come up with them we, the dog 
and I, went some distance down the water-course to 
bring all together. Some had run on three or four 
times as far as necessary to find water. When I had 
made about half of the distance on the way back, 
Sport came flying to me, barking as loudly as he 
could. 

Right in front of me he stopped and kept on 
barking as if he had something on his mind. He 


166 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


would run a little way up the ravine, then stop and 
come slowly back, then bark and turn again. He 
must want to tell me something, so I followed his 
lead, making what speed I could. He kept some 
distance ahead and turned many times to call on me 
to hurry. 

Under a pair of trees he stopped and barked 
down the slope to the creek at the foot of it. I un¬ 
derstood that something was wrong and put my best 
foot forward. 

Here the banks rose straight up some three or 
four feet from the water, which was but a foot 
deep. But the bottom was soft mud; and down in 
this mud, some on top and some under them, and 
all fighting for their lives, were about twenty sheep. 
I had to wade out into it, sinking in to my hips, in 
order to get the sheep back on dry land. Four of 
them were dead, drowned under the weight of the 
others in the mud. All would have died had not 
the dog given me warning. 

At sundown the following day we reached our 
destination. 


CHAPTER FOUR 


JACK AND SPORT ON THE CHASE 

r I A HEN began the happy days, for me and for 
the dogs. The natural beauty of the place was 
wonderful and fascinated me completely. To the 
north and west, far, far below me, lay the prairie 
with its ridges and ravines, plateaus and terraces, its 
water-courses with and without water, its scattered 
trees and level stretches. 

Where the mountain and prairie meet there is a 
river with a heavy fringe of trees along the banks. 
These form a green band winding across the bar¬ 
ren plain. They are the symbol of fertility and a 
delight to the eye. 

The river is the dividing line between the dried 
and blistered prairies and the green hills; which lat¬ 
ter lead, by gentle slopes or by a steep climb, up to 
the white back of the mountain, to the fields of 
perennial snow. 

Up among the mountains are good grass, good 
water, and a wide prospect. There is the river 
rushing noisily down over rock and precipice; there 
are the smaller rivulets with great, deep reservoirs 
.close up to the mountain wall, with the trout dis¬ 
porting themselves at the surface of the water; 
there are the creeks cutting their way thru deep 
ravines, where the wind sighs heavily among the 


168 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


trees at the bottom; ravines resounding with un¬ 
ceasing sadness and pathos. 

Here are open glades and patches of forest. At 
some places in the woods the trees are wide apart, 
so that one may ride or drive between them. At 
other places they stand so close that it is difficult to 
get thru even on foot. These patches of forest are 
a delight when seen in the bright sunshine; but un¬ 
der a cloudy and lowering sky they look dark and 
threatening. 

We had peaceful times, the sheep and dogs and 
I. Among the mountains the herder seldom has 
the opportunity to spend his nights in the wagon, 
tho the wagon is supposed to be his home. In it 
are his bed, table, seats, and cookstove. It is a cabin 
and may be made very cozy. The wagon is left 
standing at the watering-place, where the sheep 
spend the greater part of the warm day. 

At four or five o’clock in the afternoon the sheep 
begin to bestir themselves. They move slowly, all 
the time busily eating. When the herder has eaten 
his supper he goes after them and keeps watch over 
them till darkness falls. 

Where the sheep lie down there the herder also 
must spend the night. In the early morning they 
scramble to their feet and begin to feed; and the 
herder must stay with them till they have had 
enough, or till the heat of the day drives them to 
the watering-place. In cloudy weather it may be 
necessary to watch them all day. 

Between the hours of seven and eight in the 
morning I generally left them in order to get my 


SHEEPDOGS 


169 


own breakfast. By that time the day would begin 
to grow warm, and the long rows of sheep filed 
down to the water. It might be two hours before 
all had slaked their thirst. 

After that I had the whole day to myself, free to 
do what I liked I might take a book and lie down 
in the shade of some tree. Or I might stroll over 
to one of the many creeks and in a short time catch 
enough trout for both dinner and supper. I might 
take my gun and saunter down some strange ravine, 
find a seat on some fallen tree and revel in the en¬ 
joyment of nature and solitude, liberty and the blue 
heavens. 

Two or three miles away there was another 
herder in the service of my employer. He was a 
young fellow, only a little older than I. His name 
was Joseph, and we called him Joe for short. 

Joe had a dog named Jack; a big, gray veteran, 
known as one of the best dogs in these parts in 
dealing with lambs. His eyes were always running, 
his head big and very long. Joe had clipped the 
body and tail, leaving only a ring of hair around the 
former and a tuft at the end of the latter, making 
Jack a most laughable spectacle. When the lambs 
were separated from their mothers—that is, when 
they were hid from sight by some bush—and Jack 
was near, he always hurried to their assistance. 

Sometimes the lambs ran at him, mistaking him 
for mother, and sometimes they ran from him. At 
any rate they nearly always ran away from the 
flock whether or no. 

Then it was that old Jack showed his skill. If 


170 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


the lamb was one of those that stopped and stood 
still, Jack with his long nose would push it back in 
the right direction. If it was one of those that 
strayed from the fold and ran—in the wrong direc¬ 
tion of course— Jack would leap over and around 
the bushes and get in front of it, and would not 
desist before he had manoeuvered it back to the 
fold. Old Jack had in the course of his checkered 
career saved many lambs that were headed for de¬ 
struction. 

Joe and I spent much time together. Some days 
I rode over to his grazing ground, and on other 
days he came to see me. In this way Sport and 
Jack met and became close friends. Midget sel¬ 
dom went with me. She preferred to spend the day 
in the shade under the wagon or to go away by 
herself. 

Here in the mountains Sport had more leisure to 
develop his talent for hunting. I let him follow 
his own inclinations, as I knew that I could not 
cure him of them. But he was not satisfied to go 
on the hunt alone; he wanted company. There 
were not many to choose among; and so Jack, old 
and trusty Jack, became his partner in the chase. 

To Jack this was a new business. He was merely 
an excellent sheepdog who had graduated in that 
branch of learning. But when Sport had induced 
him a few times to go hunting, Jack, also, seemed 
to lose his interest in his proper work. 

This was not to Joe’s liking, but what could he 
do about it? 

In a burrow near our wagon—hollowed out be- 


SHEEPDOGS 


171 


tween the roots of a tree was a pesky marmot which 
Sport had many times tried to take prisoner. At 
least ten times a day Sport went on a hunt after this 
ugly rodent. But the marmot, which spent most of 
its time on a stump near by, would slide down into 
its burrow, and from that safe retreat it would 
abuse the dog in the most shameful way. And all 
that the exasperated dog could do was to bark and 
snarl, for the roots of the tree kept him from dig¬ 
ging for the beast. The marmot seemed to enjoy 
immensely the abortive efforts of the dog. As soon 
as Sport had gone away the marmot again mounted 
the stump and began to scream and scold. 

This at last got on Sport’s nerves. He never 
had any peace when near the wagon; he was all the 
time being disturbed by that pestiferous marmot. 
The beast interfered with his sleep by day and his 
dreams at night. But Sport had some brains in his 
shapely head. He had more than once gained his 
end by strategy; and being now convinced that his 
agility alone never would enable him to catch that 
hated animal, he began to consider if it might not 
be done in some other way. 

It was a cloudy day, and on such days the sheep 
were ill at ease. His lively interest in catching the 
marmot made Sport forget that he had any duties 
with respect to the sheep. He went and fetched 
Jack. This faithful shepherd was no doubt induced 
to desert his flock by a promise of something out of 
the ordinary. They came back together, and stop¬ 
ped in the brush, not to let the marmot know that 


172 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


they were two; and there Sport by some means in¬ 
structed Jack in his duties. 

Then Jack came out of the brush, barking loudly 
to draw the marmot’s attention, and heading 
straight for the stump on which it sat. 

The marmot saw him at once and began to chat¬ 
ter vituperative epithets at him; keeping it up till 
Jack was only twenty feet away. Then it disap¬ 
peared in its burrow, scolding all the time; and down 
there it turned and kept on calling Jack the most in¬ 
sulting names while only a few inches from the dog’s 
nose. Jack barked down at it a few times and then 
went away at a somewhat leisurely pace, but still 
kept up his barking. His big voice gradually died 
away till it could barely be heard. Then the mar¬ 
mot poked its head from between the roots and 
climbed cautiously into the open. Seeing the dog 
at some distance it ran over to the stump and again 
began to draw on its large fund of scurrilous 
language. 

However, behind the tree between the roots of 
which the marmot had its safe retreat stood Sport. 
There he had taken his stand while the marmot was 
in its burrow, and had remained there silent and 
motionless till the beast again was on top of the 
Stump. Now Sport came out from his ambush and 
took his stand over the entrance to the burrow, 
thus cutting off the marmot’s retreat. He indulged 
himself in a deep growl, which caused the marmot 
to hold its tongue and examine into the situation. 

Sport was in no hurry to make an end of it. He 
now had the whip hand; and he wanted to enjoy his 


SHEEPDOGS 


173 


triumph over this hated beast, which had so often 
made sport of him. But the marmot now had no 
time to consider the question whether or not it had 
done the wise thing in abusing the dog. Now the 
one thing essential was to save its only and precious 
life; and to do this it fled from the scene as fast as 
its fat body and short legs would permit. 

But it was not for long. After two long jumps 
Sport had the beast between his teeth and crushed 
its bones and put an end to its troubles for good 
and all. 

Then Jack came and wanted his share of the 
spoils. He had helped in the manoeuver. Sport 
could not see the matter from that angle. Jack in¬ 
sisted, however, and the two dogs fastened on each 
his own end of the carcass and pulled and tore at it 
as if possessed. They kept this up until they got 
into a fight; and tho Sport was strong and resolute 
he was soundly punished by Jack the giant, who 
gave him a drubbing for his greediness. 

In the mean time Joe was having trouble with his 
sheep. He was much put out by the absence of his 
dog, and came over to ask me if I had seen the 
animal. 

And so the day’s fun ended with a good whipping 
for Jack also, who had shirked his duty and gone 
hunting. 


CHAPTER FIVE 


THE TRAGIC FATE OF MIDGET 

1\/fIDGET was a great help to me at this time; 

that is to say, when she was in the humor 
for it. When she was not, nothing on earth could 
induce her to do anything but what she liked. 

The yearlings give more trouble than do the older 
sheep. They are more unruly, become more easily 
confused, and they run about more when the 
weather is chilly. But on the other hand, if they 
have not had a fright, they are more quiet thru the 
night and more slow to get up in the morning. 

At this season we had fine days and glorious 
nights up here in the mountains. The nights were 
cool even in the middle of the summer; and it was 
a great luxury to crawl in between the warm blankets 
under the waterproof tarpaulin which sheltered the 
bed from the chin to the feet; to lie there on one’s 
back and stare up into the dark vault with its thou¬ 
sands of stars. 

How I did enjoy lying thus, hearing the horse 
nibbling the grass, with the gentle breezes rustling 
in the heather, listening to the breathing of the dog 
near by and the cry of the coyote in the distance, 
and to see the shooting stars tracing their lines of 
light across the dark sky. 

The stars never seem so near as on such a night. 


SHEEPDOGS 


175 


But in these high altitudes the weather is an un¬ 
certain quantity. 

One morning after such a glorious evening a fine, 
mist-like rain was falling. The yearlings were rest¬ 
less, and were on their feet before daylight had 
come. 

I took both dogs with me, and for some hours we 
were busy. The horse had strayed away during the 
night; at any rate I could not find it in the morning. 
So I was obliged to walk, and in the wet heather 
I was soaked to the waist. 

For this reason I may have been out of sorts and 
may have asked too much of the dogs. For Midget 
repeatedly hesitated to obey me; and later on, when 
I had called to her in an angry tone because of her 
slowness, she disappeared. I saw her sneaking 
away between the tufts of heather, with lowered 
head and drooping tail, like a fox or coyote after an 
abortive effort to catch a rabbit. I may have used 
some unparliamentary language when I saw her 
deserting me. 

Afterward I felt penitent; for it was the last 
time that I saw Midget alive. She was accidentally 
shot and killed that afternoon. Two horsemen 
coming up the hills had taken her for a small coy¬ 
ote. When they discovered their mistake, it was 
too late to rectify it. 

It was not to be wondered at that she was mis¬ 
taken for a coyote, as she was all the time puttering 
around by herself. She had the nature of an un¬ 
tamed animal. She would not, like other dogs, rec- 


176 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


ognize man as her master. So she at last died the 
usual death of a wild beast. 

As a rule the sheep have a most voracious appe¬ 
tite and a plentiful lack of wit. When food is to 
be had and the heat does not take away their appe¬ 
tite, they eat all day from early morn till dewy eve. 
And often when there is a full moon they do not 
wait for morning either. They get up in the night 
to do their duty in life—to eat till they are round as 
barrels and seem about to burst. 

A good sheepdog will wake up the herder when 
the sheep leave their resting-place at night. But 
Sport was not that kind of a dog. On more than 
one night that summer I woke up to find myself 
alone; except for the dog, who would be lying there 
as quietly as tho nothing were wrong, and as tho 
the sheep were not his concern anyhow. 

One night I discovered that the whole flock of 
sheep had left me for parts unknown. A bright 
moon was shining. There was no wind stirring and 
no sound to be heard. I got up and looked about 
me, but could see nothing. The tinkle of the bells 
was dying out in the distance. 

Sport seemed to know nothing more than I about 
the matter. He kept close to me, looked where I 
looked and followed where I led. Not once did he 
seem to know anything but what I could see for 
myself. 

So I at last went and lay down again, no wiser 
than before. Sport snuggled close up to me as 
usual, seemingly without caring anything about that 


SHEEPDOGS 


177 


flock of sheep. When I woke up at break of day the 
dog was gone. 

I hurriedly saddled the horse; I must try to find 
the sheep before they strayed too far. There was 
danger that they might join other flocks. After a 
quarter of an hour or so I saw them far down on 
a great level plain. They were then on their way 
back with two dogs at their heels; and these dogs 
proved to be Sport and old Jack. 

The conviction then came to me that Sport had 
known all the time where the sheep had gone; but 
he had acted as tho ignorant of it in order that he 
might not be sent after them in the night. For keen 
hunter as he was, still there was nothing which he 
feared more than falling in with a coyote at night. 
But now he had made good by starting off at break 
of day and fetching Jack to help in bringing the 
sheep home. This was the only time in my experi¬ 
ence with him that Sport fetched his friend for any 
other purpose than that of going out hunting. 

One morning in September I was awakened by 
the sound of bells. The night had been cold; and 
when I poked my head out from under the tarpau¬ 
lin I saw a fog so thick that I could not see it. This 
was the earliest reminder of autumn, a reminder 
that the glorious days up in the mountains would 
soon be a thing of the past. I had a busy day. I 
could see but a few feet into the fog. I had noth¬ 
ing to go by but the sound of the bells, and I must 
go around it in a wide circle in order to keep the 
sheep together after a fashion. It was the worst 
day of the summer. The yearlings were restless 


178 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


and wanted to run away; the horse I could not find, 
of course; the heather was wet; and as a result of 
all this my temper was at the boiling-point. 

I had no breakfast that morning. Noon came, 
and I had no dinner. I was wet to the waist. The 
dog could not help me; I could see nothing, and so 
could not send him after the sheep. Several times 
in following the sound of the bells I stumbled onto 
small bunches of sheep that had separated from the 
main flock. 

It was a festival day for the old ram yclept 
Satan. He seemed to understand how helpless I 
was; and he used the opportunity to enjoy his liberty 
as never before. 

Sport was not utterly useless, however. When 
we heard the bells somewhere over in the fog the 
dog would show me the way. His eyes were no 
better than mine, but he had his keen nose to go by. 
He had not, as is the case with us humans, lost his 
sense of smell by long ages of disuse. He could 
now guide me with perfect confidence. Black Satan 
was of course our most troublesome customer. It 
w r as his black fleece which saved his life that day; 
for had a white sheep been such an insufferable nuis¬ 
ance I would have shot it dead. But even as it was 
I did not have “markers" enough; and I could not 
well spare any, not even Satan. 

Sport was furiously angry with that old ram; he 
hated the animal for having given him so much un¬ 
necessary work to do on warm days. In the thick 
fog he could not see the animal, but he could smell 
it all the time; and when he surprised it in the act of 


SHEEPDOGS 


179 


leading a bunch of yearlings astray, and I gave him 
permission, he would fly at the black ram like a wolf 
and continue to worry it till I called him off. 

Usually the sheep are stubborn, always disposed 
to resist authority. Satan was the worst in my 
flock; and the fog giving the old ram an unusually 
good opportunity, the behavior of the beast was 
atrocious. It seemed to be possessed by His Ma¬ 
jesty after whom it was named. There was no 
limit to its measures. It had been fairly crazy to 
come up into the mountains, and now it was still 
more crazy to go down again to the plains. 

The fog stayed with us thru the afternoon; and 
Sport and I were wet and hungry, having brushed 
our way thru the wet heather all day and having had 
nothing to eat. 

Just before twilight we were down by the ravine. 
We had met the sheep farther down and had turned 
them back toward the wagon. It was a long time 
since they had been given any salt; and now I 
wanted to collect them around the wagon and give 
them some, hoping to keep them there for the night. 

We had turned them without much trouble. The 
yearlings seemed to have no objection to going back 
to the wagon. I had begun to rejoice in the prospect 
of dry clothes, warm food and hot coffee; when I 
heard a bell out of the fog below us. I knew who 
it was. My sense of hearing had been sharpened 
thru my listening all day for the sound of bells; and 
I was now able to distinguish Satan’s bell from the 
others, tho to the untrained ear all sheep-bells sound 
pretty much alike. 


180 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


The dog heard it when I did, and he uttered a 
deep growl. He, also, knew with whom we had to 
deal. We must go back for the wicked old ram. 
We fell in with a number of yearlings going down 
the hill in single file. When the last one saw us it 
turned and ran back to the main flock. The next in 
order followed, and then the third, and so down the 
whole file till it reached Satan, the leader. 

He also now wanted to run back with the others, 
but was not allowed to do it; for Sport flew at him 
with ungovernable fury. To save himself Satan 
had to run the other way. Some hundred yards to 
the west was the big ravine, a deep chasm with per¬ 
pendicular walls two or three hundred feet high. 

The ram went west right toward this ravine, with 
the irate dog after him. In a jiffy they were swal¬ 
lowed up by the fog. The barking of Sport became 
less distinct. I followed them; and in a few 7 minutes 
I met the dog. He wagged his tail and seemed in 
a general way very happy. He rubbed himself 
against me, as was his wont w 7 hen he expected me 
to pat him. 

“What have you been doing, old Sport?” He 
jumped around in front of me, and barked as 
when we were especially good friends and were 
having a talk. In that way he led me to the ravine. 

Here he went out to the brink and barked into 
the sea of fog, down into the abyss, from the bot¬ 
tom of which we could hear the rippling of the 
water in the river. 

Then I understood that the ram, either because 
it was afraid of the dog or because it was unable to 


SHEEPDOGS 


181 


stop short, had made a leap into the deep chasm. 
The poor animal had run thru the fog till this gave 
way beneath it, and had plunged down till the fog 
swallowed it. With my mind’s eye I could picture 
to myself what the animal must look like down 
there among the boulders after a sheer fall of two 
or three hundred feet. 


CHAPTER SIX 


MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF SPORT 

S PORT continued to take Jack with him on his 
hunting expeditions. Which caused Joe to use 
unprintable language; for as the weather grew 
colder, he needed the dog all the more. 

One evening Sport did not come home. I won¬ 
dered at this; for he usually came before dark. He 
was too much afraid of the coyotes to stay out 
nights. 

In the morning when I got up the dog was still 
missing. As soon as the sheep had settled down to 
rest at the watering-place, I saddled the horse and 
set out to find the dog. 

I rode over to Joe; but he denied having seen 
him. Sport was gone and had left no trace. I 
never saw him again. In spite of Joe’s denial I 
still believe that he shot my dog in order to keep 
it from further corrupting his own. But I could 
not prove it, and so I could take no steps in the 
matter. 

On the following day Stubb came up to us 
with provisions. He brought with him a pure-bred 
collie, a little pup which he had intended to leave 
with me in order that it might be trained together 
with Sport. Now that Sport was gone I would have 


SHEEPDOGS 


183 


to get along with only the pup until Stubb found 
another dog for me. 

The pup was little and of tender age, only five or 
six weeks old, and could not now be of any use to 
me. It was black, with belly and legs of a lighter 
shade, and was uncommonly handsome and intel¬ 
ligent. 

When the yearlings and especially the old rams 
noticed that Sport was no longer with us they began 
to be less careful to obey my orders. 

When they were going away and I gave a loud 
whistle they would always turn around as before. 
As a rule they had lifted their heads when they 
heard the whistle, and looked to see where I was. 
Then when they saw the dog at my side they knew 
what would be done to them if they did not obey. 
But when a day or two had passed without their 
seeing Sport they grew more indifferent. They al¬ 
ways lifted their heads when I whistled; and when 
they saw only me and the harmless puppy—or they 
did not see it for the high heather—they went on 
according to their own sweet will. 

However, it counted for something that the pup 
came of a long line of sheepdogs. It was a pure¬ 
bred collie, and to herd sheep was its natural busi¬ 
ness. It must be trained to do it according to or¬ 
ders, but it had inherited the rudiments of the art 
from a long line of collie ancestors. 

When I for the first time turned the collie loose 
against some yearling sheep that stood looking at us 
with contempt, it did not shame its noble lineage. 
It ran at them from the rear and struck at them 


184 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


with the nose between their hind legs. When that 
did not bring results the pup nipped at them angrily 
with its milkteeth, biting them on the inner side of 
the flank. 

The pup was valuable because the strain was 
pure, and because of its being a female. The owner 
impressed on me that I must treat her well and be 
careful not to lose her, nor to spoil her. 

Like most thorobred dogs she was extremely 
sensitive. If I spoke harshly to her—as I some¬ 
times must do when she was overzealous in her 
duties—she would creep into hiding behind some 
hillock, or she would keep at a distance. When I 
turned and looked at her she stopped also, and 
stood looking me in the eye as if begging my for¬ 
giveness. Her own eyes would shine with hopeful 
expectancy, and her short tail wag so hard that the 
whole hindpart of the body wagged with it. 

So she would stand till I spoke to her in a friendly 
tone. Then she came to me and tried her utmost to 
show me her sincere love and gratitude. 

In September it is autumn up in the mountains. 
The mists come farther and farther down the 
slopes. In the morning it lies thick athwart the 
higher levels. It hides forest and snowfield, preci¬ 
pices and pinnacles, even when the sun shines bright 
and warm farther down. 

But there were some warm days in September 
also, and there were mild autumn days with bril¬ 
liant sunshine and high, blue heavens. 

On a certain warm and bright morning the puppy 
Tvas so over-zealous in her work, that I several 


SHEEPDOGS 


185 


times warned her to moderate her zeal. Each time 
she would quiet down for a few minutes, and then 
forget my warning. To train her properly I must 
first teach her discipline by giving her to understand 
that the end of disobedience was a whipping. But 
I could not find it in my heart to whip the innocent 
little thing; so when she went against my orders and 
attacked the sheep, I threw my hat at her. The 
soft felt hat hit her, and she howled as if every 
bone in her body were broken. Then she took to 
her heels and w T as soon lost to view in the tall 
heather. 

I instantly repented that I had frightened her. 
I began at once to look for her, to call and whistle, 
to use my most tender words and softest tones in 
trying to induce her to come back to me. But she 
did not come. She was in hiding, or she had lost 
her bearings. For more than an hour I tried in vain 
to find her. It was necessary for me then to look 
after my sheep, which had already gone far astray. 

Later in the forenoon, when the sheep had lain 
down to rest by the watercourse, I took up the 
search again and kept at it till noon, but without 
success. 

Poor little puppy. In my thoughtlessness I had 
given her such a fright that I might never see her 
again. She was so little and strange to the place 
and so unused to being alone. It would not be easy 
for her to find her way among the bushes. To her 
the heather would be as tall trees and the heath 
an interminable forest. 

At noon I went home without having found the 


186 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


puppy; and all the afternoon I suffered mental tor¬ 
ture. What if the poor little thing out there should 
meet with some mishap? I could imagine what she 
suffered, alone and hungry and thirsty; for it was a 
blistering hot day. 

In the evening, as soon as the sheep were resting 
quietly, I went on a new search. I thought it best 
to take with me some meat and water. I whistled 
till my lips were sore, and shouted myself hoarse, 
but all to no purpose; the pup had vanished com¬ 
pletely. 

It began to grow dark, the sheep were in bed, and 
a melancholy wind stirred the heather. With heavy 
heart I got ready for bed; I had never before felt 
so lonesome. 

I saw the white tarpaulin showing in the high¬ 
light; and on coming nearer I saw something black 
on it. And there lay the pup curled into a round 
ball, while the shades of night were falling fast. 
When I came near she jumped up and barked brave¬ 
ly. I was glad that it was I who came—it might 
have been a coyote. 

I wondered how she had been able to find my 
bed, as this was far from the place at which I had 
thrown my hat at her in the morning. I took her 
up into my arms and held her close to my breast, 
and petted and fondled her. 

I could see it in her eyes and by her wagging tail 
that she had forgiven me; and when she had eaten 
her fill of meat and had slaked her thirst with the 
water brought to her in my hat, we were again the 
very best of friends. 


SHEEPDOGS 


187 


That night the pup slept under the blankets snug¬ 
gled up to me with her head on my arm. And I was 
glad that I had her there when the coyotes made 
night hideous with their howling and the brave pup¬ 
py growled an answering challenge. 

I was the last of the herders to go down from the 
mountain this fall. The ewes and lambs were first 
taken down to the winter quarters; for in the latter 
part of September a blizzard might come any day. 
The yearlings could stand up better against such 
a storm. 

They were trying days, those last ones in the 
mountains. When it was not rainy the weather was 
foggy. The days were raw and disagreeable, and 
at night the autumn storms swept heavy and sad 
over the hills. 

At last Stubb came for me. I had been glad to 
come up here in the early summer, and now I was 
equally glad to go down to the prairie again. 

We camped the first night by the river at the foot 
of the mountain. We had found a sheltered nook, 
but in the night I could hear the storm winds blow 
up among the peaks. Next morning the mountain 
was covered with snow. The sun came out and 
shed its light over the slopes as we continued on our 
way, while a cloud enveloped the mountain in 
shadow. We drove out over the prairie in the sun¬ 
shine, towards light and life, while back of us stood 
the mountain, lonely and deserted. 


















NERO 

» 




CHAPTER ONE 


BILL, DOT, AND BOB 

D OT was a puppy which I at one time knew. I 
remember well the first time that I saw it. I 
came driving by; when it barked at me with a piping 
voice, meanwhile wagging its tail in a spirit of 
friendship, the brilliant puppy-eyes asking me to 
excuse the liberty. It was small and slender, smooth 
of skin, and coal black with white breast and a little 
white hair on the paws and the extremity of the tail. 

I had to stop the horses in order to talk to it for 
a moment and to fondle it. It wagged its tail so 
vigorously that the head and the part to which the 
tail is affixed sometimes came in contact with each 
other. 

Presently some children came out of the same 
tent from which the pup had appeared, followed 
by a great black greyhound. 

The pup ran to them, wagging its tail and rub¬ 
bing itself affectionately against their legs; gave the 
big grey-hound a loving caress and went into the 
tent from which it came out again at once to bark 
after me when I drove away. 

This was the first time that I saw the tent and 
these children, as I had been only a day or two in 
this neighborhood. 


192 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


When I reached the camp where I was working, 
I asked the foreman about these new arrivals, and 
was told that the man was our new blacksmith. 
The wife was sick, he said; had some dangerous 
disease of the lungs. 

It was for her sake that the man had come to 
these parts. He had brought the whole family 
several hundred miles in a prairie schooner. 

Next day I met the smith himself, and had a 
glimpse of his wife and two little girls some distance 
away. 

Usually the dogs followed the man to the smithy, 
or they visited him there several times in the course 
of the day. I met them there many times, heard 
their history from their owner, and became one of 
the friends of the family. 

The smith had owned the greyhound a long time. 
This animal, also, was black with small white 
patches on the paws, but not on the tail. It was the 
most powerful looking grey hound that I ever had 
seen; and I pictured to myself what could be made 
of it by a proper course of training. I may have 
gone so far as to wish that the dog were mine. For 
the country round about had many coyotes, some 
few wolves, and of rabbits and other game a count¬ 
less multitude. 

But Bill was not for sale. I might borrow him, 
said the good-natured smith, if I could induce him 
to go with me; but the hound was slow to make new 
friends. 


NERO 


193 


The puppy Dot was quite different; wanted to 
be on friendly terms with everybody. It was wide 
awake all day, playing with the children and culti¬ 
vating new friendships. 

Dot had been given to the smith by some farmer 
along the way. Its mother was half greyhound, 
but the farmer knew nothing about the other parent. 
It might be any one of a score of dogs in the neigh¬ 
borhood. 

The mother of Dot was an almost perfect speci¬ 
men of a greyhound, except for her small size. So 
the smith said when acquainting me with the pup’s 
pedigree and family history. 

Then he pointed to Dot, who could stand up 
straight right under Bill, and remarked: “She will 
never be any larger than she is.” 

Tho Dot still had the clumsiness of the young 
pup, everybody who knew anything about dogs could 
see that she was of the greyhound strain. The 
slender and finely arched back, the long legs and 
lean body, the wonderful suppleness so unusual in 
a pup, and which made it seem so grown up when¬ 
ever its antics did not remind one of young puppy- 
dom—all these things would tell the fancier what 
breed of dog it was. 

But her ears were longer and were hanging down 
more than should be, the nose was not so pointed 
as that of a greyhound, and she was more rounded 
and more beautiful. 

It was late summer or early fall, the weather 
still warm. I had to drive much, for water and hay 


194 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


and provisions, sometimes over long and lonely 
roads. 

I should have liked to take Bill with me on these 
trips. The owner did not object; for the dog was 
beginning to grow fat from lack of exercise. But 
for a long time Bill persisted in declining the honor 
of my acquaintance. 

However, what is called stick-to-it-iveness will 
win at last. 

I was firmly determined to secure to myself the 
friendship and affection of Bill, and I would not 
abandon my purpose because of his failure to re¬ 
spond to my first advances. 

I began by being good to Dot, on whom the big 
greyhound always kept an eye, looking on himself 
as being in a manner of speaking her guardian. 
When I gave Dot some delicacy, stolen from the 
cook’s tent, Bill always came over to us in order 
to see what was doing. I offered him something 
also, but it was a long time before he would take 
anything from my hand. 

Dot, on the other hand, soon became my good 
friend. She would have been glad to go with me 
when I went away. She would run after me for 
some distance; and then turn and see Bill, who al¬ 
ways stood watching her. Then she ran back to 
him. 

I kept up the practice of giving the two dogs 
food, until they would come to me whenever they 
were hungry. So I won their good will, second only 
to their regard for the smith himself. 

Bill was a trained hunter—all greyhounds are 


NERO 


195 


born with this instinct. He knew very well what 
a gun was. Many a time when I took my rifle and 
went my way his eyes were full of longing to go 
with me. 

Sometimes he stood looking after me till I was 
out of sight; and he plainly was strongly tempted 
to come with me, but was kept from doing it by his 
natural pride and dignity. 

Affection is often a mere matter of habit. We 
meet, think nothing of it at first; then suddenly we 
must part, and we discover that we miss each other 
sadly. We had fallen into the habit of being to¬ 
gether, and this habit we call friendship, or affec¬ 
tion. 

It is the same thing with members of the brute 
creation. I knew this, and kept forcing my friend¬ 
ship on Bill, till he at last forgot his dignity and 
responded to my advances, presumably without 
knowing anything of the change being brought 
about. 

He began to go with me now and then; at first 
only on my shortest trips, when I went for a barrel 
of water. But after that he became my steady com¬ 
panion on my long, lonely trips over the prairie. 

When the snow came the tent was too cold for 
the horses. A stable must be built, and it became 
my duty to haul the lumber. The nearest sawmill 
was far up the mountain. To get back reasonably 
early in the evening I had to set out long before the 
break of day. Four horses had a hard job hauling 
the empty wagon up to the mill; while the brake 
was needed nearly all the time on the way home. 


196 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


One hill was so steep that I found it necessary to 
cut down a tree and use that as a drag. 

On one of these trips I met a poodle-dog. It 
seemed to have dropped right down out of the sky. 
It followed me, possibly for the reason that I was 
the only person there. It had the appearance of 
being a pet poodle belonging to some childless lady 
in the city. I never did find out how this poodle 
came to be out there at the sawmill, which had al¬ 
ready shut down for the winter. 

The little dog followed me as if I for years had 
been the only man it had known. And when it 
had been fed that first evening and the next morning 
it acted as tho fully determined never to desert me. 

Now, dogs are often very jealous. As the poodle 
began to keep by me I noted a change in the de¬ 
meanor of Bill. It was plain that he, formerly so 
proud and cold, now was jealous. He now even 
condescended to show that he liked to have me 
caress him. 

As the work went on there came more people to 
our camp. Some came alone, others with their 
whole family; and nearly every family had one or 
two dogs. 

One of these was a big, hairy mongrel, one of 
the ringleaders in all fights. 

Bill was a very peculiar dog. He would not keep 
company with any of his kind excepting Dot. He 
seemed to think that he was too good to associate 
with the common herd. He was an aristocrat in 
his democracy and was therefore hated by the 
proletariat. 


NERO 


197 


Besides, it was his nature not to fight unless he 
must. He would hesitate in a way which seemed to 
border closely on cowardice. But if one had ever 
seen him fight, and noted the lean body with its 
muscles of iron, one would know that when Bill 
would not fight he was held back by something very 
like a moral principle. 

He was in the habit of trotting around by him¬ 
self. One day the other dogs sneaked after him 
and fell on him at some distance from the camp. 
Had there been any cowardice in his heart he could 
easily have escaped by running away, fleet-footed 
greyhound that he was. But he stood his ground 
and defended himself till he was badly wounded. 
He had left the bloody marks of his teeth on the 
other dogs. The leader of these was the big mon¬ 
grel, whose name was Bob, and who had received 
the worst punishment. 

From that day on there was war to the hilt be¬ 
tween these two; and they showed it whenever they 
met. But Bill never would take the offensive, and 
Bob had learnt a lesson; so a long time elapsed 
before the enmity between them at last came to a 
head. 


CHAPTER TWO 


BILL ON THE HUNT FOR COYOTES 
HE health of the smith’s wife did not improve; 



A the mountain air did not bring the expected re¬ 
sults. So the doctor said that she must be taken 
home at once if there was anybody whom she wanted 
to see before it would be too late. 

The smith then left camp in a hurry with his 
sick wife and the children, after selling whatever 
property he had to our building contractor. Bill 
and Dot naturally looked upon me as their master 
when the smith and his family had left. And the 
poodle, known as Curly, regarded itself as being 
my property in fee simple. 

I had a good time with them that winter. Bill 
was ahvays with me, and on my shorter trips I took 
the other two with me also. 

It was very seldom that Bill barked; in camp he 
was very quiet. It was only when he saw a coyote 
that he relieved his feelings with some short and 
suppressed and very deep yelps. 

In the night after the departure of the smith I 
was awakened by some dreadful howls coming from 
a considerable distance. At first I did not know 
what to make of it. The tone was too deep to come 
from the throat of any wild beast of the prairie. 


NERO 


199 


It sounded more like the deep whistle of a siren on 
some steamer far away. 

I got up to look into the matter; and I found Bill 
sitting on his tail at the place where the smith’s 
tent had stood, howling a doleful farewell song. 

I had much trouble in persuading him to hold his 
tongue. Later in the night I several times heard his 
sad plaint, and each time it was answered by the 
coyotes in the surrounding hills. 

We had the best time when all three dogs fol¬ 
lowed me on a Sunday outing and they caught sight 
of a rabbit. All would go after it at their best 
speed. Curly would soon be left so far behind that 
it was entirely out of the race. Dot would keep 
it up a little farther and then come back for fear 
of getting lost in the heather. But Bill, who could 
run even faster than the rabbit, went like a black 
streak across the plain. 

Every time he opened his jaws to snap at the 
posteriors of the rabbit this animal would jump sud¬ 
denly to one side, so that Bill overshot the mark 
by twenty or thirty feet before he lost momentum 
and was able to stop. Then the chase began again; 
the rabbit repeating the former manoeuver, nearly 
always with the same result. 

The greyhound does not have the instincts of a 
fighter; it is a hunter. When we were out together 
that winter hunting coyotes I saw many evidences 
of Bill’s great talent. 

In the chase a greyhound is guided by its keen 
eyes, not by its nose. 

Whenever Bill saw a coyote he indulged himself 


200 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


in a short, deep bark or two and erected the hairs 
of the neck, and his long limbs were like steel 
springs. 

If I said: “At him, Bill,” he went to his work 
with all the speed in him. 

The coyote is itself a speedy beast; but unless 
it had a start of at least twenty rods Bill would catch 
it on the run. 

All the coyotes that we saw this winter took to 
their heels when they caught sight of Bill. When 
he was after them they put their heart into it and 
scattered the miles behind them. 

When the dog was going at top-notch speed, and 
I was at a place from which I could watch the race, 
I could see how steadily he gained on his quarry. 
When he had caught up with it he nipped the coy¬ 
ote’s hinder end, always with the result that it made 
a couple of involuntary somersaults among the tufts 
of heather. When the coyote again was on its feet, 
and understood that it could not trust to its legs, 
it cleared the deck for action and made ready to 

fight _ 

It is characteristic of the greyhound that it will 
not attack an animal which is not running. The 
greyhound’s one specialty is chasing everything that 
runs. It will hardly ever molest in any way an ani¬ 
mal which stands still and looks at it. Such seems 
to be its nature. 

So Bill would stand and look at the coyote; but he 
made no move to attack it, and so the battle never 
was fought. 

There was much snow that winter; and so the 


NERO 


201 


food was sparse for the large herds of cattle on the 
prairies. 

It had happened several times that some of the 
half wild cattle had come in the night to our camp 
and helped themselves to the hay which I had pro¬ 
vided for the horses. I built a barbed wire fence 
around the stacks, but it did not keep the famished 
cattle out. 

Early one morning I found a number of cows in 
the hay. I was on my way to the stable to harness 
the team. “Bill,” said I, “go and get them.” 

Now Bill had never in his life had to deal with 
cattle; but he was glad to do my bidding, and went 
to it at once and caught one of the cows by one 
of her hind legs. 

This he should not have done; the cow did not 
like it. She jerked her leg loose and gave the dog 
a vicious kick. 

Bill received the blow right in the face and yelped 
most piteously as he rolled over the ground. After 
that day I could not by any means induce him to go 
near a cow. 

The dogs had been sleeping out of doors; but 
when the bitter cold of winter came upon us they 
tried in every way to get into the tent with us for 
the night. Some of the workmen insisted on turn¬ 
ing them out in the evening. So one day I dug two 
holes down into the ground to serve as kennels, one 
for Bill and one for Curly. The doors were wooden 
frames with an opening protected by a flap of cloth, 
so that the dogs could go in and out as they pleased; 


202 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


and the floors were covered with a deep layer of 
straw. 

Dot slept in the bed with me like a quiet child 
on my arm. But the bed was so narrow that I was 
afraid of doing her some injury, so I fixed up for 
her a box with hay in it and found a place for it 
under my bed. 

There she lay when we others turned in, and pre¬ 
tended to be sleeping; but whenever I woke up I 
found her with me under the blankets, and she 
would lie perfectly still for fear of being driven 
away. And when I spoke to her she always pre¬ 
tended to be sleeping. 


CHAPTER THREE 


THE SICKNESS OF LITTLE CURLY 

CPRING came, and the snow was gone; but 
^ nothing had as yet begun to grow, and we still 
had many cold days. 

The smith had been right in his prophesy that 
Dot never would be a large dog. She was now 
nearly full-grown, almost without having grown at 
all. 

She was a trifle longer and taller than she had 
been, but had kept the slender build which had made 
her so unlike the usual pup. 

In the springtime all nature is quickened, the joy 
of life grows more keen, and fancy lightly turns 
to thoughts of love. 

For the first time the tender passion began to 
burn in Dot’s young heart; and as she was the only 
dog in the neighborhood of the female persuasion, 
she had many wooers. 

Dot was the innocent cause of many fights in these 
days. The bloodiest of them was the big battle 
between Bill and Bob; in which Bob was so badly 
whipped that for some days his owner expected him 
to die. 

From her earliest puppyhood Bill had been Dot’s 
protector; so now it was no more than fair that 
she in a way should belong to him. 


204 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


He always had guarded her well, and now he 
guarded her even better. The other dogs in the 
camp had to be satisfied to look on from a distance 
while the two, with her in the lead, roamed the 
neighborhood together. 

Bill had suddenly developed such an ugly temper 
that none of the other dogs dared to approach Dot. 

The smallest of the male dogs in the camp was 
little Curly, and he also was the most handsome 
animal among them. 

Dot and Curly had from the first been the best 
of friends. Curly was Dot’s steady playmate, for 
Bill would seldom condescend to play. This may 
explain why Bill showed no disposition to be jealous 
of Curly, who was so little, and whom Bill probably 
never thought of as a possible rival. 

Bill could not at this time be induced to go with 
me on my excursions. He would not leave Dot, but 
guarded her as a jealous lover might keep an eye 
on the object of his love. 

Bill even deserted his kennel and slept outside 
of the opening to our tent. But curly also was now 
grown up. He was little and could not fight the 
big dogs, but he had as much brain as any in his 
little head. 

The big dogs trusted in their physical prowess, 
something in which Curly knew that he could not 
compete with them. He had always been obliged to 
use cunning in order to hold his own and get his 
share of the good things of life; and so his brain 
had developed, while that of the larger animals may 
have been dormant. 


NERO 


205 


One evening just before bedtime Curly was taken 
suddenly very ill. He shivered as with the chills, 
and there was a gurgling in his throat as with an 
attack of nausea. 

This happened just outside of the opening into 
the tent, and just as I was going in for the night. 
I took him in my arms and carried him inside and 
laid him down on some sacks behind the stove. 

Dot was in there already, and she now came and 
rubbed her muzzle lovingly against that of her play¬ 
mate. But poor Curly was too sick to open his 
eyes. He lay still, caring not the least for Dot or 
anything else. 

When I blew out the light and went to bed Dot 
was in her box under my bunk. 

I woke up several times that night from hearing 
Bill prowling outside of the entrance, and I had to 
shout to him to be still. Strangely enough, for the 
first time since the habit was established, Dot did 
not sleep on my arm. 

The sickness of Curly did not last long. In the 
morning he seemed to be nearly all right; but in 
the evening he again lay outside of the entrance to 
the tent suffering awful agony. 

Then suddenly the truth dawned on me. Curly 
had outwitted us all. For the sake of keeping the 
strain as nearly pure as possible I had wanted Dot 
to remain faithful to Bill only; but Curly had fooled 
me into helping him in the carrying out of his plans. 
I had myself shut out Bill, who could so easily have 
put his rival to rout. 

When spring came our camp grew larger in the 


206 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


number of people and other animals. Some of the 
families had poultry, the contractor had a fat hog; 
and shortly before this a brindled cat had appeared 
on the scene, coming from nobody knew where. 

Poor little Dot. She began to be heavy and have 
a subdued air. She would not often play with me, 
as had been her habit. Much of the time she stood 
looking at me, her bright eyes dimmed with unwept 
tears. 

As her time drew near I made her a comfortable 
kennel, where she might have undisturbed privacy if 
she so desired. 

I hoped that Dot’s pups would be greyhounds. 
She was half greyhound herself; and so the pups, 
tho not quite pure, might become valuable animals. 
However, when they came one night I made a dis¬ 
covery which to me was something new. Four of 
the eight pups were greyhounds, and the other four 
were poodles. 

Dot seemed very happy at this time. The build¬ 
ing contractor aforesaid wanted to kill the pups; 
there were too many dogs in the camp already. But 
I persuaded him to let me keep two of the new¬ 
comers, a greyhound which I wanted for my own, 
and a poodle which I wished to keep for a time as 
a matter of curiosity. It would be interesting to 
watch the growth of these two widely different pups 
belonging to the same litter. 

I had expected that the cat would be the one fe¬ 
male in the camp who would not help to increase the 
population. The nearest farms were several miles 


NERO 


207 


away, and the wild animals of the prairie were dan¬ 
gerous to cats. 

But I had reckoned wrong; love surmounts all 
obstacles. Not long after Dot’s confinement the 
cat also began to show signs of soon becoming a 
mother. 

Dot and the cat, with the pups and the kittens, 
dwelt together that summer as one happy family. 
Often the puppies pushed their way under the cat, 
where they even tried to take refreshment. And 
Dot was as watchful of the kittens as of her own 
progeny. 

One day I noticed that Curly was fast growing 
altogether too fat. I was aware that dogs might 
put on a deal of flesh in an incredibly short time. 
But Curly overdid it; and when some of the families 
that had chickens complained of the mysterious dis¬ 
appearance of the eggs—tho the shells always re¬ 
mained—I began to harbor a slight suspicion that 
Curly might be a thief. 

And this was soon shown to be the case; and the 
rightful owners of the stolen eggs came to me with 
complaints, and then with threats. 

It is claimed to be impossible to cure a dog of 
stealing eggs. I do not know if this is true; but 
rather than have anybody kill poor Curly I gave 
him to a man who happened to come driving that 
way. 

Late in the summer we had finished our work, 
and people were leaving the place. 

The greyhound pup—my pup—was at this time 
at least twice as big as the poodle. 


208 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


The contractor did not want any of the dogs 
except Bill, who was worth some money. I secured 
for Dot and her poodle pup a good home with some 
people on a farm, with whom I had become ac¬ 
quainted when I was hauling hay. 

I shall not forget the day on which I left Dot 
at her new home; how piteously she whined, and 
how reproachfully her bright, almost human, eyes 
looked at me for the last time as I drove away. 

Many times since have I seen these eyes in my 
thoughts and dreams. Even now after many years 
I can see them looking at me with loyal faith, when¬ 
ever I sit alone and close my own eyes. And I 
feel a sting of the old pain which I felt then, some¬ 
thing which clutches at my heart. 

Still, I had the comfort of knowing that Dot 
and her pup had come into the hands of people who 
would always deal gently with them. 

The contractor had kept the big greyhound only 
to make some money out of it. A farmer down by 
the river, who spent his winters as a hunter and 
trapper, had often seen Bill; and learning that he 
was now for sale, came promptly and bought him. 

But it was not so easy to persuade Bill to leave 
us and go to another home. He absolutely refused 
to follow when the farmer who had bought him 
rode away. Not even the chain around his neck 
could induce him to come on. He struggled violent¬ 
ly, lay down flat on the ground, and showed his teeth 
when the new owner came near him. 

So we agreed to deliver the dog at the farm on 
the following day; and as Bill would not go with 





“NERO” 








NERO 


209 


anybody but me it devolved on me to do the deliv¬ 
ering. 

I did this duty with a heavy heart. I was so fond 
of Bill that to part with him was like parting with 
a beloved friend. 

At the farmer’s place he followed me into the 
stable; and there we shut him in, while I galloped 
home. 

The farm was at some considerable distance from 
our camp. But the wind that night was from the 
west, and it carried to my ears the wailing of the 
greyhound—the same piteous wailing which I had 
heard on that moonlit night when Bill sat at the 
place where the smith’s tent had stood, and gave 
vent to his grief over losing his old master. And 
when night now came, and the wind sighed sadly 
across the prairie, I again heard Bill’s mournful 
baying. 

It was so hard for poor Bill to reconcile himself 
to a new master and a new home. He had reached 
the age when any radical change is almost intol¬ 
erable. So he now sat in his prison and howled his 
feelings out into the night. 

A long time after this I was told that the grey¬ 
hound had run away from the trapper, who was 
said to be cruel toward animals. The greyhound 
was not a dog toward which one could be cruel and 
at the same time remain its master. It could not 
be ruled by force. It wanted to love and to be 
loved. 


CHAPTER FOUR 


NERO 

W HEN I went away I took the greyhound pup 
with me. I stopped some days in a little min¬ 
ing town, to rest up and to decide just what I wanted 
to do during the remainder of the fall season. 

In this town I fell in with a man whom I knew, 
by profession a gold-miner and trapper. He was 
in town to buy some provisions, and was going back 
next day to the place where he was washing gold 
out of the sandy banks of the river. 

He was alone, and would like to have somebody 
with him; and except for the puppy I was alone 
also. So I went with the man. Not that I had 
much faith in gold hunting in this part of the coun¬ 
try, but that this free life in the open appealed 
to me. 

It took us three days to reach his camp; which 
was on the banks of a river, at the entrance to a 
canon some forty or fifty miles long, carved out 
by the river thru the mountains. 

It was a wild and picturesque place. The river 
roared thru the canon; between walls which at some 
places rise straight up, and at other places even 
lean out over the chasm; which in the evening 
shadows are dark and threatening, and which tower 
high toward the heavens. 


NERO 


211 


Along these fifty miles of river and canon there 
was a great variety in the scenery. At some points 
in the dark mountain the chasm widened; and there 
the river flowed noiselessly, and friendly little 
islands had lifted themselves out of the water. 
There were grass and bushes and trees on the slopes 
which the sun could reach; and the wild grandeur 
of it all was relieved by places of surpassing loveli¬ 
ness. 

In this canon my friend Bart Niland had spent 
five years of his life. Here he had in the summer 
been panning gold with varying success; and thru 
the long winter he had hunted and trapped game, 
all alone with his ponies and his dog. 

To a dweller in the cities such a life may seem 
unendurable, but not to them that have tried it. 
A few years spent in the loneliness of the wide 
prairies teach one to be alone without being lone¬ 
some. 

Loneliness broods over everything out there; 
over the long, hot days, when the sun bakes the dry, 
gray earth; over the friendly, moonlit evenings; 
over the stormy nights of winter and the starry 
nights of autumn. 

This loneliness has put its stamp on everything, 
even on the fauna and the flora of the region. 

Here and there on the banks of some ravine or 
dry creek a lone tree tries to extract some nourish¬ 
ment out of the meager soil; here and there skulks 
some lonely beast of prey. Up against the blue 
sky is sometimes seen a black spot: a hawk or a 
falcon or an eagle sailing majestically thru space 


212 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


under the everchanging but always lonely heaven 
above the prairie. 

And from some place, coming out of the black 
night, may be heard the low and weird hooting of 
a solitary owl. 

In these surroundings my greyhound puppy grew 
up, ate itself nearly to death whenever occasion of¬ 
fered, and was more trouble than help when I took 
it with me out hunting. But I wanted it to learn 
something of the work which probably would be 
the business of its life. I tried hard to teach it, but 
it showed a most surprising disinclination to learn 
anything. As it grew larger it became self-conscious 
and more self-willed. Its temper was very uncer¬ 
tain. In appearance it was much like its sire, tho 
its nose may not have been quite so long and 
pointed. It had the human and intelligent looking 
eyes of its mother. 

The mother being such a little animal one would 
expect the pup also to be of diminutive size; but 
in this instance the law of heredity seemed to have 
slipped a cog. Nature presented to us one of her 
frequent but incomprehensible exceptions. For the 
pup was even now almost as large as its father; and 
there was nothing to suggest that the animal in¬ 
tended to stop growing. 

For speed it was a wonder, tho the long legs still 
had something of the pup’s clumsiness. Its appetite 
was like the appetite of a hired man. 

I remember a certain day on which Niland was 
repairing a rifle that had not been in use for many 
years. 


NERO 


213 


In the evening, as the sun went down, at a time 
when the rabbit usually crouches under the heather 
and nibbles at the grass, we went outside to try the 
rifle. 

Hunting rabbits was the favorite sport of the 
pup; and with much patience and some use of the 
rod I had been able to make it understand, that 
when I had shot a rabbit this belonged to me and 
not to the pup, at any rate not till I said so. 

This evening we had not gone far before we saw 
a rabbit under a tuft of heather. Niland took a 
shot at it. The old rifle had a big bore, while the 
rabbit was a small specimen of the tribe. It was 
thrown a dozen feet into the air and came down 
again as a mere bloody mass. In a few seconds 
the pup had reached the place. The rabbit had 
been torn into shreds; the bullet had been too large 
and the distance too small. 

The pup at first stood looking longingly at the 
delicacy and then inquiringly at me. 

“You may take it,” said I; wondering what it 
would do with something which looked so disgust¬ 
ing. However, it must have looked to Nero like 
a thing to tempt the appetite; for in a moment he 
had it between his teeth, shook it a little so that the 
loose earth fell off it, jerked it up by a turn of his 
neck, opened his mouth to the ears, and quickly 
swallowed the whole thing, fur and flesh and blood 
and bones. 

Niland and I could not help admiring his appe¬ 
tite and the perfection of his digestive apparatus. 

There are on the prairies two species of rabbits. 


214 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


The larger is like the common hare of northern 
Europe; while the other is a wild cony, of about the 
same size as the tame rabbit, and of a gray color. 

The large kind always trusts to its legs, and does 
not look for a burrow in which to hide. The small 
kind is less confident of being able to run away from 
its enemy. It always sets out with great speed 
when pursued by a dog, but it makes use of the first 
opportunity to hide in some burrow. If there is 
none such conveniently near at hand, or the rabbit 
is too much disturbed in its mind to be able to find 
one, it usually will be caught and killed by the fleet- 
footed dog. 

My pup had soon discovered these facts. He had 
been roaming the prairies alone, the same as his 
father did before him; and many a rabbit that was 
nibbling at its evening meal had lost its life to ap¬ 
pease Nero’s miraculous appetite. 

If it seemed to him that we did not treat him with 
fairness at mealtime, he would go out. He never 
stood there like a sneaking beggar as dogs com¬ 
monly do; his inherited pride would not let him do 
it. He went out and ate the food he himself could 
provide. 

The sire had been a dog of few words, but Nero 
w T as boisterous; tho he did not run around and bark 
at everything and at nothing as so often is the case 
with watchdogs. 

This comparative taciturnity may have been due 
to the fact that there was little to bark at; Nero 
might have been noisy like the others had he grown 
up on a farm with living things all about him. 


NERO 


215 


As it was he seemed to emulate the only animals 
of his kind in these parts. For when the sharp call 
of the coyote was heard in the evening, Nero always 
answered in the deep bass which he had inherited 
from his sire. 

He was the only dog within a circuit of some 
miles, the nearest farm being about four miles from 
our camp. 

Want of companionship will in due time make a 
man morose and odd; and no doubt the same thing 
holds good in the case of other animals. It is 
probable that when Nero barked and howled in an¬ 
swer to the coyote he did it merely to be sociable; 
for there was nothing in his appearance or tone to 
suggest any hostility. And when at night he barked 
at the moon, the barking no doubt expressed his 
loneliness; it was a crying want which he lulled to 
sleep with a song. 

The pup had grown up without a name; but of 
course he must have one, and I had now begun to 
call him Nero. 

From his birth he had been sleeping out of doors. 
When the long and cold nights of early winter came 
upon us, with snow in the mountains, and the north 
wind began to howl, it seemed to me that Nero’s 
shorthaired and smooth fur looked pretty thin. So 
one night when the weather was unusually cold I 
did not turn him out of doors, as I had been in 
the habit of doing, before going to bed. 

For an hour or two he made no noise, presum¬ 
ably because he heard none. Near midnight I woke 
up and did not at once go to sleep again. I was 


216 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


lying there listening to the north wind among the 
trees outside, to its monotonous whistling over the 
plains, and to the peaceful breathing of my chum 
and of Nero. 

Then i heard the cry of a coyote thru the night. 
It came from far away and was but faintly audible, 
but it reached the sharp ears of Nero. His regular 
breathing ceased. Another dog might have growled 
and then fallen asleep again; but not so with Nero. 

First I heard that he was trying to get out. He 
scratched at the door; and when this did not do any 
good he came over to me where I lay, and sniffed 
at my face and rubbed his nose against mine. 

I pretended to be asleep. Nero went to the door 
again. I heard him scratching at the woodwork; 
he whined and he begged. Several times he came 
back to me, pulled at the blankets, and repeatedly 
gave me a pretty hard blow with his paw. When I 
still pretended to be asleep he went to Niland, who 
really was sleeping soundly. 

Nero grew more and more uneasy, and began 
to whine loudly; and when another coyote near by 
answered the howl of the first one, Nero joined in 
the chorus with his deep roar till the flimsy cabin 
trembled and the startled Niland came near falling 
out of bed. 

I made haste to let Nero out in order to save 
him from the kick which he would surely have re¬ 
ceived if Niland had been quick enough. 

This was the first time that I had taken Nero 
into the house at night, and it was also the last. If 
I later on tried to get him to come in of an evening 


NERO 


217 


when there was a storm, he would come as far as 
the door, but no farther. That is, in the evening; 
he was often in the house during the day. 

Nero was most uncommonly sensitive. He had 
often shown this even as a young puppy. If it hap¬ 
pened that we were angry and talked to him in a 
harsh tone, he took offence and went away. 

He might then stay away for hours, and some¬ 
times the whole day. At other times he kept near 
by us, but pretended neither to see nor hear us if 
we said anything to him; he ignored us completely, 
and usually we needed to use our very best diplom¬ 
acy in order to win back his good will. 

Nero had occasion at an early age to learn what 
a gun was. 

In order to teach him to keep behind me till after 
the report when we were hunting rabbits, I had a 
few times fired the gun close to him. The effect of 
the shot on the rabbit had soon taught Nero to 
keep in the rear. I had a few times pointed the gun 
at him, merely in fun. If there then was anything 
to get behind he got behind it in a hurry; and if 
there was no such shelter he simply shut his eyes. 
He seemed to regard that as his last chance. It 
was impossible to induce him to look into the muz¬ 
zle of a gun. 

We had in our camp a pair of monstrous hogs. 
One was a great fat sow of which Niland had be¬ 
come owner when she was quite little. Afterward 
he had bought a boar to keep her company. This 
boar was very large and had a very choleric temper. 

Once when I went down to the river for a pail 


218 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


of water the boar attacked me. I struck at him with 
all my strength with the full pail and hit him squarely 
in the snout. The sound of the blow was such that 
for a moment it caused me to pity the beast; I 
thought that I might have been too rough with it. 

But the boar did not seem to mind it in the least. 
I looked at the pail and saw the reason why. The 
boar had received the blow on his two great fangs; 
and in the pail were two holes thru which I could 
stick one of my fingers. 

From the first day this boar was Nero’s enemy. 
Nero was in the habit of taking a nap after dinner. 
He sought a quiet patch of sunshine near the house 
in order to enjoy a peaceful siesta. 

But as soon as he had settled himself comfortably 
the boar would come and disturb him, grunting his 
hated grunt into the dog’s face and pushing at him 
with his abominable snout. 

And big and strong tho he was, Nero could do 
nothing worse than to watch his chance to bite his 
teeth into the boar’s ear. 

To show how helpless the dog was as against this 
monster of a hog I must relate this incident: 

Niland had a colt which came home one day from 
the ravine with a broken leg. He took his rifle and 
put the colt out of misery. With the two ponies 
we dragged the carcass to a hollow a hundred yards 
or so from the house. Next day, just as the coy¬ 
otes were singing good-night to the setting sun, we 
heard an unusual noise from the direction of that 
hollow. 


NERO 


219 


Niland and I were in the stable, and we hurried 
over there to see what the trouble was. 

There stood the boar making his supper off the 
carcass; at the same time fighting off two big coyotes 
that had been called to the place by the smell of it 
and also wanted their supper. 

Whenever they came too near the boar made a 
sortie; and they had enough discretion to keep out 
of the way of the boar’s wicked looking fangs. 

When these two robbers of the prairie did not 
dare to try conclusions with the boar, did not have 
the courage to dispute his right to that supper; what 
could be expected of a dog which was little more 
than a pup? 

So there was nothing else for Nero to do than 
to go his way when the pesky boar came. But Nero 
did not like thus to be under the necessity of sur¬ 
rendering his right to liberty of action. It hurt his 
natural pride, and so he hated that hog with a most 
bitter hatred. 

Winter came early that year and was very severe. 
There was ice along the banks of the river, and in 
the mountains it was bitter cold. The canon was 
empty and dead. 

I had spent the two previous winters out there 
in the wilds. I felt a keen longing for a change, but 
could not readily come to a decision as to the place 
where I wanted to spend the winter. 

I was lying awake one night thinking of this 
matter. There was a strong wind from the north 
with snow and sleet. The storm came howling out 


220 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


of the ravine, and sighed heavily over the wide 
plains. 

To the ear it was a gripping drama, somber 
enough to be almost a tragedy. And while I lay 
there that night listening to the soughing of the 
stormwinds there came upon me an overpowering 
impulse to get away, back to my fellows; back to 
civilization, from which I had so long been absent. 

I loved the prairies and the mountain and the 
forest, in their bright summer dress and in the 
somber garments of autumn, as tenderly as these 
natural solitudes ever have been loved by any man. 
But my young blood demanded a change. The life 
over on the farther side of the horizon was calling 
and beckoning—and it is not good for man always 
to be alone. 

So I left Niland and Nero to the winter and the 
loneliness, and went away to satisfy my wanderlust 
and seek my Eldorado in some other place. 

The life history of Nero from that time on I 
record as it was told me by Niland when several 
years later I met him again. 


CHAPTER FIVE 


NERO IN THE ROLE OF PEACEMAKER 

'VJILAND and Nero spent all that winter by 
^ ^ themselves. From the time when I left and 
until the time in the spring when they went to town 
with the load of furs, and to buy a stock of provi¬ 
sions, they did not once see a human being, nor did 
Nero see any other dog. 

In the meantime Nero had grown big and strong; 
a handsome greyhound, whose mixed blood only 
gave him a more powerful body. He was a dog 
that would have attracted attention anywhere, but 
especially out there where coyote and wolf dogs 
were in such great demand. 

In the town were many ranchmen, gold miners, 
trappers, and farmers. Most of them were there 
on the same business as was Niland. All had money, 
and all were disposed to amuse themselves a little 
after the long winter. Niland declined many good 
offers for his dog. 

The visit to the town was a welcome change for 
Nero also. He had been alone all winter, and now 
spring had come. Suddenly he felt a new and 
strange interest, a strong desire for the company 
of other dogs. 

They stayed in town a matter of four days. 
When they were well started for home, where 


222 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


neither of them could expect to see one of his own 
kind before they went back to town in the fall, they 
stopped for some minutes and took a look back at 
the place. 

There is a certain sadness in it when one thus 
starts out to spend another half year by himself 
after a short stay in town—no matter how often 
one may have done it before. 

Niland felt it, tho he always had led this kind 
of a life. The dog felt it also, now that he was 
going away from those of his kind which he had 
met. He had spent happy hours with them, and 
would miss them at the lonely camp. 

After such trips to town it always would take 
some days to accommodate one’s self again to the 
life of the camp. 

Niland was a great reader. He always brought 
with him from the town a mass of reading matter; 
and so Nero was for some days left almost entirely 
to his own devices. His mortal enemy, the boar, 
was no longer there; and so he could not even amuse 
himself with an occasional sortie against that beast. 
He took care of himself, ate and drank, and did as 
he pleased. In the evenings, when the coyotes paid 
their tribute to the setting sun, Nero always joined 
in with them. And instead of being harsh and de¬ 
fiant, as is usual with dogs, his tone was almost 
friendly; and he showed no sign of being angry 
during these daily concerts. His howl was the out¬ 
pouring of a lonely heart longing for life and com¬ 
panionship. 

Nero was the image of his father; from his 


NERO 


223 


mother he could not have inherited anything but 
his friendly disposition. 

The father of Nero never attacked a coyote; he 
caught it on the run, nipped it; a little in the rump 
so that it tumbled down, and thus delayed it until 
the hunter came and ended its life. 

In this respect Nero was quite different. Tho 
of an evening he howled in concert with the coyotes 
without any signs of enmity, he would when on the 
hunt attack them with ungovernable fury. 

If he could avoid it without turning tail the father 
never would fight with other dogs. The son of this 
aristocrat of dogdom had never, while he was with 
me, had any opportunity to show just what he might 
do in an affair of this kind. But there was a case 
in point the following summer. 

Forty or fifty miles to the east there was an In¬ 
dian reservation. One day that summer a whole 
band of Indians came by with their tepees, their 
ponies and dogs; and in the evening they made their 
camp down by the river not far from Niland’s cabin. 

Niland made use of this chance to talk with some¬ 
body, even tho the somebody was only an Indian; 
and Indians are not noted for their talkativeness 
when in the company of the whites. 

Nero was with his master on this occasion, but 
showed unexpected reserve. He sat or lav looking 
carelessly at the little and plebeian Indian dogs as if 
not seeing them, or at any rate as if taking no inter¬ 
est in them and the insolent curiosity with which 
they regarded him. The Indians always have many 
dogs; and a majority of these are quarrelsome and 


224 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


impertinent. These mongrels were strongly in¬ 
clined to make common cause and attack Nero. 
Their noses told them that he also was a dog, tho 
he was so different from them in appearance. 

However, nothing came of it; somebody kept the 
dogs back. But to satisfy their craving the curs 
started a fight among themselves. Two of the larg¬ 
est among them engaged in battle close to the place 
where Nero was sitting. 

He remained sitting for a time as a neutral spec¬ 
tator. But for some reason the fight did not seem 
to meet his views in regard to propriety. He got 
up slowly, went slowly over to them, caught first 
one and then the other of the combatants firmly 
by the scruff of the neck, as if to teach them better 
manners, and then threw them violently to the 
ground on either side. Then he went away as de¬ 
liberately as he had come, and lay down again. 

Shortly afterward he closed his eyes and stretched 
his long body on the warm earth, seemingly with no 
inkling of the curiosity which he had awakened. 


CHAPTER SIX 


NERO AND THE RATTLESNAKE 

UT in the wilds is an animal, a crawling viper, 
which all other denizens of the prairie, even 
the bravest, shun and fear; and this crawling thing 
is the rattlesnake. 

A horse may be coming along, with or without a 
rider. It makes a sudden jump to the side; and if 
there be a rider who is not on his guard, the jump 
may have serious consequences. The horse was 
startled by hearing the peculiar, dry noise made by 
a rattlesnake. 

Or a flock of sheep may be eating their lazy way 
over the prairie on a warm day. Suddenly there 
is an opening in the middle of the bunch, the fright¬ 
ened sheep run wildly in all directions; and one may 
be sure that a rattlesnake has been in evidence. 

So it is with the wolf, the dog, the coyote, and 
with man; all fear and shun this pernicious reptile. 

Or nearly all. There was an exception, Nero. 
To be sure, he also jumped to one side when his 
ears told him that there was a rattler near by. But 
as soon as he saw the reptile there was another 
story. Niland had been the owner of many dogs of 
many kinds; but Nero was the only one of them who 
would attack a rattlesnake. When Niland for the 
first time saw him do it he laid it, of course, to the 


226 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


young pup’s lack of sense. And Niland did his best 
to teach the dog to be afraid; tho he saw that his 
teaching was ignored. So at last he let Nero do as 
he liked. 

Niland could not help but admire Nero’s cour¬ 
age when for the first time he saw the dog kill a 
rattlesnake. Nero went close to it; so close that 
Niland every moment expected him to be bitten. 
The snake had but to strike; the slightest touch 
would mean death. But Nero was always out of 
reach when the snake made the attack. He had his 
own system of blocking every play. He watched 
his chance, caught the snake just back of the head, 
and the fight was over. 

One day Niland found the hole of a pair of 
coyotes over among the hills. Next day he came 
back to dig them out. Nero was out on one of his 
excursions and did not come with him. 

It was in the morning. Just as Niland caught 
sight of the burrow he saw the mother coyote leav¬ 
ing it with something between her teeth. She was 
moving, and was carrying one of her cubs. In some 
way she had found out that her home had been dis¬ 
covered by the enemy which she most feared. So 
she was moving her young to another and safer 
place. 

But Niland had seen that at least one of the cubs 
still was there. It stood at the entrance looking 
after its mother; but when Niland came nearer it 
slid back into the burrow. 

It was the only one left of the cubs, a little and 
frightened female, which closed its eyes and trem- 


NERO 


227 


bled when he took hold of it. The mother had car¬ 
ried the others to their new home and would, of 
course, have come back for this last one had she 
been given time enough. 

Niland did not want to kill the little thing; he 
took it to his cabin and tried to make it eat some¬ 
thing. 

When Nero came home, and the infant coyote 
was held before his eyes, Niland was surprised to 
see the gentleness of the dog. Nero examined the 
little one with unspeakable wonder in his serious 
eyes. He poked carefully at it with his nose, and 
sniffed at the whole little body in order thoroly to 
satisfy his curiosity. 

During this examination the coyote made itself 
as little as possible, trembling with fear of this big 
animal which was so like and so unlike the coyote 
mother. 

Before long the two were good friends. The 
cub missed the brothers and sisters, and could not 
long resist the friendliness of Nero. 

Niland turned a big box into a house for the cub, 
and fastened the animal to it with a strong strap 
around the neck. 

The severe winter came early that year. Cattle 
and sheep sought their food down on the low lands, 
and found but little of it. 

These great herds and flocks are never given any 
hay if they can by any possibility do without it. 
But if the winter is unusually severe and long the 
owners are sometimes obliged to give them hay in 
order to keep them alive till the grass comes. 


228 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


Niland had a small stack of wild hay, put up in 
the summer for his ponies. 

When the time of famine was on them this stack 
of hay proved a strong temptation to a herd of 
cows that thru the whole autumn had kept them¬ 
selves in this neighborhood. 

The cows were already so starved that it was 
pitiful; and when they one moon-lit night in sheer 
desperation made an assault on the stack of hay, 
Niland was not able to drive them back. 

The coyotes had begun to follow these cattle 
day and night; at some distance to be sure, but still 
near enough to be promptly on hand when a starved 
cow gave it up and lay down to die. Coyotes never 
attack a full-grown cow before hunger or disease 
has made her harmless. 

But when she is in her last throes, and has been 
left behind by the other cows, the coyotes can be 
relied on to come and make an end of her suffering. 

While Niland was doing his best to keep the 
cows away from his hay, the coyote sat near, egging 
them on with its weird howling to go at it with even 
still more reckless abandon. The situation was not 
amusing; and was made worse by the absence of 
the one and only Nero, who might have been of 
some assistance to Niland at this juncture. 

Niland had trained the dog to come when he 
gave a shrill whistle with two fingers in his mouth. 
By this means he could call the dog from a consid¬ 
erable distance, especially on windless nights. 

And now that Niland so sorely needed the ani¬ 
mal’s help to protect his valuable hay, he whistled 


NERO 


229 


a call of distress which was like the blast of a siren 
thru the still moonlight. 

This startling whistle made the coyotes keep their 
peace; it was something so new and strange to them. 
But far out on the prairie was one who heard and 
understood. That he must obey this call was some¬ 
thing which had been deeply dented into the brain 
of Nero. He knew that he was to come at once to 
Niland, the one man whom he knew and loved. 
And he showed his loyalty by dropping all other 
business and coming as fast as he could. 

It did not take him long. He reached the place 
at the very time when Niland was in greatest dan¬ 
ger of being trodden under foot by the wildly ex¬ 
cited cows. Nero knew no more about cows than 
his father had known; and the adventure which Bill 
had with them was now repeated, Nero doing ex¬ 
actly what Bill had done. 

With a growl he rushed in and fastened his teeth 
in the leg of the nearest cow; and she acted just 
like the cow on which Bill had made his attack. 
Bill had received a kick which for all time cured 
him of the desire to hunt cows. In the same way 
Nero received a blow on the head which sent him 
rolling over and over on the snow. 

So far it was the same old story. Experience 
does it, as they say; but experience is sometimes an 
expensive teacher. 

In the case of Bill experience had taught him 
nothing more than the simple lesson, that he would 
better keep away from cows. He was at the time 


230 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


getting on in years; and it is hard, we know, to teach 
an old dog new tricks. 

Now, whether it was Nero’s youth or the inheri¬ 
tance from his mother’s side of the family, or solely 
the influence of the wild environment, may be an 
open question; but when Nero scrambled to his feet 
he was furious whether or no, and returned to the 
attack on the cow that had kicked him. He now 
had learned to keep out of the way of her hind feet. 

The battle raged fast and furious. The cow 
was outclassed and soon admitted defeat; and tried 
to get to a safe distance where the other cows 
would cover her retreat. 

But Nero was now so angry that all cows were 
alike to him; he resolutely went after any that 
crossed his path. He indulged in assault and bat¬ 
tery to the extent that the cows at last got together 
in regular formation, with horns toward the outside, 
just as they do when attacked by wolves. 

No matter against what point Nero now directed 
his attack, he found it defended by sharp and long 
horns, and for a moment this confused him. But 
his blood was at the boiling-point, and he had no 
thought of quitting before his work was done. He 
ran around the ring once or twice looking for an 
opening. When he found none he did not hesitate 
to adopt the plan of the wolf in a case of this kind. 
He took a good start and made a flying leap, land¬ 
ing with a roar on a cow in the very heart of the 
bunch. She went mad with fright and started to run 
for her life; and the ring was broken up into a num¬ 
ber of panic-stricken cows running wildly in all di- 


NERO 


231 


rections. Nero followed in pursuit for some dis¬ 
tance over the moon-lit prairie, until his mighty 
voice barely reached the ear of his master. 

After thirty minutes or so he came back; perfectly 
calm as if nothing had happened. He went to the 
stable, not expecting or caring to be thanked and 
caressed. 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


NERO, THE YOUNG COYOTE, AND THE 

WOLFHOUND 

IKE all dogs Nero had the habit of burying in 
the earth any food left over from his meals; 
in order to dig it out and eat it later on when he was 
hungry. 

When he had brought in some delicacy, usually a 
rabbit, he would eat as much of it as he could out¬ 
side of the door, and then bury whatever was left 
over. 

But after the young female coyote came into his 
life he changed this habit and never buried any food. 

Now when he had any such delicacy, he always 
put it down where the young coyote could get at it. 
The two ate together; and when Nero had eaten 
what he wanted, he left the rest of the food to his 
little lady friend. 

She was growing to be a fine, big animal, and she 
needed more food all the time. Niland often was 
absent, sometimes for the whole day. But no mat¬ 
ter where he was or how long he stayed, the coyote 
suffered no want; Nero brought her something to 
eat every day. 

Was there a purpose in this, or was it merely a 
habit which Nero had contracted thru eating to¬ 
gether with the coyote? 


NERO 


233 


Like all others of her kind, this coyote howled 
when the sun went down, in answer to the howls of 
the other coyotes over on the hills. 

Niland had tried to cure her of this habit, gen¬ 
erally by throwing something at her whenever she 
began. By this means he could teach her not to 
howl, but could not teach her to forget. During 
the day she usually remained quietly in her box—or 
it might be outside of it if the weather w r as favorable 
—excepting at the times when Nero visited her. 
Then she showed her pleasure by wagging her hand¬ 
some, bushy tail. But in the evening she always 
found it hard to keep from answering the call of 
the other coyotes out of the twilight. This concert 
as a rule made her forget both herself and Niland, 
and she would make as if to join in the chorus; but 
Niland’s harsh voice would silence her at once and 
cause her to sneak with a shame-faced air back into 
her box. 

Thru all her puppyhood she had been a prisoner 
at the end of a chain, but this did not dull the edge 
of her keen wish to be free. She had tried to free 
herself by every means at her command. The 
bright chain had marks on it to show that she had 
not spared her teeth during the quiet nights; and 
her tracks, when there had been a fall of snow, 
showed how she had chafed to be able to make a 
dash for liberty. But nothing had come of it. The 
one thing on which she might have used her teeth 
with the desired result was out of their reach—the 
leather strap around her neck. 

One day an old trapper, a friend of Niland’s, 


234 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


came by, having a pair of dogs with him. One of 
these was merely a common mongrel, while the 
other was a valuable Russian wolfhound. This 
animal was taller and longer than Nero, tho not 
quite so sturdy in build. 

As soon as this dog caught sight of the coyote 
he flew at her and would no doubt have killed her 
then and there, had not her faithful friend and sup¬ 
porter, Nero, been there to prevent it. The battle 
was fast and furious. They stood up on their hind 
legs, they rolled over and over on the ground, 
howled and growled and snarled. The uproar was 
deafening. 

Niland wanted to stop it at once, but thought 
better of it when the other man coldly remarked: 
“Oh, let them have a little fun.” Niland could see 
that the wolfhound was a good and trained fighter; 
but so was Nero also. When out hunting he had 
often killed a coyote as if it were a rat, without re¬ 
ceiving as much as a scratch. 

The wolfhound and the greyhound have much 
in common. They are built on the same plan; but 
the wolfhound has long hair, while the greyhound 
has a smooth fur. In a fight they use the same 
tactics, like a wolf and the coyote; they snap and 
tear at each other. They never take hold and hang 
on like the bulldog. 

But Nero was not a thorobred greyhound. No¬ 
body knew what his maternal grandsire had been. 

Be this as it may. Nero would sometimes bite 
and hold on. Niland had often seen him do it when 
fighting with a coyote. Nero would fasten his 


NERO 


235 


fangs in the throat of the enemy, and usually the 
fight was then soon ended. 

Now the two brutes fought in about the same 
way. They kept it up with undiminishing fury, 
frothing at the mouth and with eyes flashing fire. 

It had been a pretty even fight; no great advan¬ 
tage on either side. But Nero seemed as strong 
as ever on the offensive, while the wolfhound 
showed signs of weakening. Then, when both were 
down, the wolfhound suddenly lay still on its back 
with Nero’s teeth fastened to its throat. 

Nero had at last secured the hold for which he 
had been trying from the start; the deadly hold 
which would in a few seconds have finished the wolf¬ 
hound if Niland had not come to the rescue and 
forced Nero to let go. 

The wolfhound crawled away and lay down, 
licking its wounds. It knew that it was whipped. 
Nero went over and sniffed at the coyote, which 
from the door of the kennel had watched the whole 
proceeding. 

The old trapper understood dogs. He saw that 
Nero was just what he wanted, and he offered 
Niland an unheard of price for the animal. But 
Niland shook his head; Nero was not for sale. 

In the latter part of the winter, or early spring, 
both the dog and the chained coyote were in a very 
uneasy mood. Nero made too liberal use of his 
liberty. He was gone all night, and sometimes all 
day. When the coyotes howled in the evening he 
would join in with them from a hill back of the 


236 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


cabin, and his deep voice sounding like the rumbling 
of thunder. 

At this season the dog was half wild, extremely 
unmanageable. Niland often had to point the rifle 
at him in order to induce him to stop his nerve-rack¬ 
ing howling from the hilltop. 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


A FIGHT IN THE DARK 

r | A HE coyote was but little better than Nero. 

Niland could silence her by throwing something 
at her, or by shouting to her; but as soon as he turn¬ 
ed his back on her, the warning was forgotten. 
When she heard a howl she answered it, and kept 
it up till Niland’s voice frightened her into holding 
her tongue. 

Her howls woke him up many times every night. 

One morning when Niland came out Nero was 
lying outside of the coyote’s kennel licking the many 
bloody wounds with which he was covered. When 
spoken to he wagged his tail, but his eyes flashed 
fire; and when the touch of the tongue caused his 
wounds to smart, as happened now and then, bring¬ 
ing back to his mind the night’s adventures, he ut¬ 
tered some threatening growls. 

That night Niland shut Nero into the barn; but 
his howling later on became so intolerable that there 
was nothing for it but to get up and let him out. 
He licked his master’s hand briefly and gratefully, 
and then vanished into the darkness. After a time 
his voice was heard from far away. Presumably he 
was hurling defiance at the enemy, or the enemies, 
that on the previous night had given him such rough 


238 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


treatment. His challenge was replied to, the howls 
of the coyotes coming to him from every hand. 

Next morning he again lay outside near the ken¬ 
nel. The old wounds were beginning to heal, and 
there were no new ones. The wild gleam in his 
eyes was gone, and he wagged his tail in most 
friendly fashion. 

Some drops of blood and a yellow-gray tuft of 
hair sticking to him at a place where he could not 
get at it with his tongue told the story. He had 
avenged the defeat of the previous night. 

Then one day the spring came in good earnest. 
The grass put its fine feelers up out of the ground 
to try the warmth in the air. The trees down by 
the river began to bud, and the snow was retreating 
up the side of the mountain. The call of the wild 
was stilled; and the life of dog and coyote ran 
smoothly in the beaten path. 

All day the coyote would lie in the sun outside 
of her kennel, almost without moving. In the night 
it was another story. Then her chain rattled un¬ 
ceasingly from twilight till dawn. 

It was near the time when Niland must make his 
trip to town. The larder was nearly empty. But 
what to do with the coyote? Should he turn her 
loose? He did not like to do this; for he was sure 
that she was to have a litter of cubs, and he wanted 
very much to see them. 

However, some days later Nero solved the prob¬ 
lem for him. 

When Niland came out in the morning the coyote 
was not there. The chain was still fastened to the 


NERO 


239 


kennel, but the heavy leather strap that had en¬ 
circled her neck had been bitten thru by Nero’s 
sharp teeth. 


CHAPTER NINE 


THE LONE TRAPPER 

O NE day that summer the old trapper again 
came by. Like Niland he was a lonely man, 
usually in the service of the big cattle companies; 
for he was known far and wide for his skill in ex¬ 
terminating beasts of prey. 

He was a man in good repute. But he had one 
periodical weakness, of which nothing could cure 
him. 

He was a drinking man, but not a steady tippler 
like certain men in the cities. He did not drink 
every day. The drinking men of the prairies are 
not of that kind. They get drunk a couple of times 
a year, when they make their spring and fall trips 
to town to replenish their stock of provisions. 

This man might stay drunk all the time for a 
week or two. Whether it were to be one or two 
depended mostly on the state of his finances. When 
he had “gone thru his pile”—his wages, perhaps, 
for a whole year’s work—he would get his team 
and dogs and disappear as quietly as he had come. 
Then he would drive back over the wide plain, fol¬ 
lowing the lonely trail bordered with tufts of 
heather; back to the wilds, where there was noth¬ 
ing but the howling of the coyotes from the hills to 
break the solemn stillness. 


NERO 


241 


The trapper was now on his way to town, where 
he would for a week or two lie around in a fright¬ 
fully dissolute state. He disappeared among the 
hillocks just as the sun appeared above the eastern 
hills. Niland could for some time see the light re¬ 
flected from the yellow raincoat, which was rolled 
up and tied to the saddle. This was the last seen 
of him; the sun, and the heather waving in the gen¬ 
tle breeze, had swallowed him. 

In this way the trapper went to town when the 
big thirst came upon him, once or twice or three 
times a year. And in this way he comes back when 
his old carcass is saturated with dissipation. In 
this way he has lived since his locks were golden, 
until now when they are whitened with old age. Al¬ 
ways alone with his dogs and ponies, in sunshine and 
rain, summer and winter; a loneliness which must 
be experienced to be understood. 

And in this way he will live till life’s bitter end. 
He is a desert rat, a lone animal who, faithful to 
the traditions of his tribe will be found dead—hav¬ 
ing died as he lived in the wilds which at first he 
may have dreaded, but which he afterward, as he 
learned to know them better, came to love more 
and more. Then himself became a part of this 
nature, melting into nothingness in the midst of the 
solitude. 


CHAPTER TEN 


THREE TO ONE 

T N THE spring three brothers had taken up their 
residence at a place farther down the ravine. 
They were three quarrelsome brutes, who had been 
many times in the clutches of the law. Niland had 
met them a couple of times; once when he was out 
looking for a lost horse. At the time when this in¬ 
dustry was in bloom they had made for themselves 
a pretty far-flung reputation as horse-thieves. 

So Niland had good reason for it when he went 
that way to look for his horse. And this time he 
had Nero with him. 

As compared with other animals, hogs were at 
the time a great rarity in these parts. 

The three brothers had a pair of big hogs, one a 
sow with a litter of pigs. 

One of the hogs was impertinent to Nero. Now, 
Nero had probably not seen any hogs since the time 
of the boar that was the torment of his puppyhood. 
He may have forgotten all about hogs; but this im¬ 
pertinence on the part of the strange brute had no 
doubt jogged his recollection of the early days. At 
any rate the hair of his neck now stood on end, he 
bared his teeth, and growled a deep challenge. 

The distance between the camp of Niland and 


NERO 


243 


that of the brothers was not great, but the road was 
almost impassable. 

However, the first time that Nero saw those hogs 
was not to be the last time, as it happened. The 
sheep were up among the mountains, and the rab¬ 
bits were not easily caught; but the hogs—how 
Nero did remember and hate these grunting, filthy, 
fat monsters that impertinently poked their snouts 
into everything they saw. 

One day Niland went out to get a prairie hen for 
his supper, and he and Nero found themselves near 
a bunch of ponies not far from the camp of the 
brothers. 

Niland thought it time to give up the hunt and 
go home. But when Nero had caught the scent of 
the ponies he stopped short and by his actions in¬ 
sisted that Niland must come and look at them. 

And sure enough; in the bunch stood his own 
pony for which he had been looking, his pet pony, 
Topsy. 

The other ponies moved some steps away, but 
Topsy remained where she was. She knew her 
owner and willingly followed him when he took her 
by the forelock and led her home. 

It goes without saying that the brothers after 
this hated Niland most cordially. Horse-stealing 
was not in good repute at the time. When the au¬ 
thorities had caught a horse-thief they made an ex¬ 
ample of him in order to discourage the nefarious 
business. 

Niland noticed that Nero took a new course when 
starting out in the evening to make a night of it. 


244 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


Instead of roaming the prairie he went down the 
dark ravine. This was a mystery to Niland, until 
one of the brothers came riding one day and threat¬ 
ened him with a violent death if he did not keep his 
dog at home in the night. On the night before this 
Nero had, it appeared, killed one of the large hogs 
and several of the small pigs. 

There was no possibility of a mistake; the man 
had seen the thing with his own eyes, and would 
have shot Nero dead had the brute not been so in¬ 
fernally quick to get away. 

Niland could do nothing but offer the man proper 
compensation, and promise for the future to keep 
his dog at home. He knew that these jail birds 
would kill him with as little compunction as that 
with which they would kill his dog. 

The place was far out from the settlements, and 
in a general way there was but little respect for the 
law. 

Niland was not timid, but he was a man of peace. 
He had more than once had to do with such men 
as these. And in the course of the years he had 
made for himself a high reputation as a good shot. 
It was said that no matter how fast the deer might 
run his rifle would bring it down. But withal he 
was a man of character and of much reading; a man 
who believed in law and order, a lover of animals, 
a child of nature; but a man who might be danger¬ 
ous if hard pressed; a man in whom the instinct of 
self-preservation was most strongly developed. 

For some nights Nero was compelled, in spite of 
his earnest protest, to stay in the house. Niland 


NERO 


245 


had intended this time to keep the dog a prisoner 
every night for a good long time; but after a few 
nights of the deafening noise he saw how impossible 
it was, and again allowed the dog full liberty. 

The first night after this setting of the prisoner 
free Niland noticed that Nero again wanted to go 
down thru the ravine, now lying buried in the 
twilight. He called the dog to him, talked to him; 
earnestly tried to make him understand that the 
way of the transgressor is full of danger, to impress 
this deeply on the canine brain. For the moment 
the dog was all friendliness, much like the gentle little 
Dot. He who from earliest puppyhood had con¬ 
sorted with the wild beasts of the prairie, and had 
lived with them as one of them, now assumed the 
most innocent air in the world, as he sat listening 
to Niland, who supported the dog’s head between 
his two hands. Nero, who led the life of the wild 
with its freedom and dangers, who without hesitat¬ 
ing attacked and conquered even the dreaded rattle¬ 
snake, sat there with bright eyes and received the 
caresses of the only person whom he had learned to 
love. 

When the instruction was ended Nero lay quietly 
down, as tho he really had understood every word 
of it and intended to profit by it. 

The dog was lying there still when Niland went 
in to bed. 

In the gray dawn Niland was awakened by the 
report of a gun down in the ravine. He hurried 
into his clothes and went outside. Soon he heard 
another shot, and on the heels of that the hoof- 


246 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


beats of a galloping horse. He ran in and got his 
gun. 

Then a third shot was heard out of the stillness, 
and the report was multiplied between the walls of 
the ravine. The sound of hoofs became more dis¬ 
tinct. Then Niland saw something coming around 
the nearest bend in the road. He strained his eyes 
and saw that it was Nero; running slowly and pain¬ 
fully with a broken hind leg. 

Then Niland understood what had happened. 

A moment later a man on horseback appeared 
out of the gray light of the dawning day. 

Nero lay down at the feet of Niland and began 
to lick the wound. 

The horseman came trotting up to the place with 
the rifle in his hands. His face was pale with fury. 
The dog had killed the last of the large hogs. 

Putting a strong restraint on himself, Niland of- 
fred to make good the damage done by his dog. 

The furious man would not listen to the offer; he 
wanted the dog’s life. 

For a time they discussed the matter, more and 
more angrily. The man would not listen to reason; 
he was beside himself. Niland looked at him with 
a twisted smile on his lips. 

“I am going to kill the dog even if I have to kill 
you first,” screamed the man with the rifle, but with¬ 
out pointing the weapon at him. 

Niland stood there as before with the smile on 
his lips, holding his own rifle pointing forward from 
his hip and with the trigger pulled back. He quietly 


NERO 


247 


said: “Make sure that your first bullet hits the 
mark.” 

This was too much for the angry bully. Quick 
as a flash he brought his gun to the shoulder; but 
even while he was doing it Niland’s riflle rang out, 
aimed from the hip, and the man fell to the ground 
with a broken arm. 

That day Niland stayed at home. He spent the 
afternoon in seeing to it that his shooting-irons were 
in working order. After a long season of neglect 
the automatic pistol was furbished up and oiled. 
That night he lay with his clothes on. However, 
morning came, and there had so far been nothing 
doing. 

It was a murky, cloudy day. Over all was the 
stillness of some dark foreboding. 

The following night was pitch dark, as black as 
night can be. And with the darkness a strong wind 
came howling thru the ravine. 

This night also Niland had purposed to stay 
awake. But he had not slept on the previous night, 
and now the heavy weariness at last overcame him. 
Several times he was awakened by the whistling of 
the wind. He was uneasy, knowing that he was in 
danger. He would not light a candle. It would 
shine out thru the window and might invite danger. 

Nero also was uneasy. He growled at intervals, 
and in his troubled dreams he uttered many strange 
sounds. 

In the middle of the night Niland became broad 
awake; Nero was barking with all his might. 

At first Niland neither saw nor heard anything 


248 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


startling. Then there was a faint light, which 
quickly became more and more lurid; until it dawn¬ 
ed on Niland that his cabin was on fire. The mis¬ 
creants had thought to revenge themselves by burn¬ 
ing his cabin and him with it. 

Another moment, and there was the report of a 
gun, and one of the window-panes was shattered. 

Niland caught up his revolver, and the sack of 
gold-dust which he always kept under his pillow. 
Then he opened the window at the rear of the cabin 
and climbed out, and as noiselessly as his hurry al¬ 
lowed he pulled the dog out after him. Nero 
growled and wanted to bark, but was at once si¬ 
lenced by his master. 

Now was heard one report after the other. The 
ruffians had not seen Niland, but kept on firing into 
the burning house in order to make sure that he 
could not escape. 

Niland let them shoot. The important thing to 
him was to get away before the light grew strong 
enough to reveal his whereabouts. 

He ran to a place on the dark prairie, where 
Topsy was tethered by an iron stake. There he had 
his saddle also and had soon strapped it on the back 
of the pony. By this time the fire was burning so 
fiercely that the light of it shone far out over the 
prairie. 

Niland was in the saddle with the heavy dog 
stretched across his lap, when it was brought home 
to him that the enemy had caught sight of him, for 
a rifle ball went singing by, uncomfortably near him. 
Then came another, and yet another, and many 


NERO 


249 


more in succession. They whistled out in sharp con¬ 
trast to the whistling of the wind. 

Niland bent forward as low as he could over 
the dog in order to make of himself as small a target 
as possible. 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 


WANTED: WATER 

T OPSY fairly flew across the prairie, and even in 
the inky darkness she was as sure-footed as ever, 
jumping over the high hillocks of heather. Niland 
was well on his way when a shot hit him. It was an 
accident rather than any skill on the part of the 
marksman. Niland felt a sharp pain in his leg. 
Then he felt that the stocking was wet, and that 
the blood was running down into his shoe. 

After a time, when he knew that he was hid by 
the darkness, he dismounted for the purpose of 
bandaging his leg. He did it as well as he could in 
the dark, using his handkerchief for a bandage. 

But he must go on, for he was far from having 
reached a place of safety. When day came those 
men would come out here and look about them. If 
they then saw that he had been wounded they would 
not soon give up the pursuit of him. Even if their 
thirst for ; revenge were not strong enough to keep 
them going, the gold which he had washed that 
summer, and which they surely must suppose that 
he had with him, certainly would be more than 
enough to induce them to keep up the chase. 

With some difficulty Niland again climbed into 
the saddle and lifted Nero up there with him. He 
now rode more slowly, weakened as he was by the 


NERO 


251 


loss of blood. He felt also a strange sort of dizzi¬ 
ness. 

When day began to dawn he had pulled the mare 
down to a walk. His foot was swollen and painful, 
and he suffered from a burning thirst. 

He had intended to shape his course to strike a 
bend of the river to the south; but daylight revealed 
to him that he had missed the direction. So he now 
changed his course in order to reach the spring of 
water on the road to town, the only watering place 
within a circuit of many miles. There he would 
also be most likely to find somebody who could 
help him. 

He shaped his course by the sun, now floating 
big and bright over the mountains. 

It was a hilly country; with a grayish-white soil 
that reflected the rays of the sun, almost like snow. 
It was nearly naked of vegetation, with only some 
meager tufts of withered grass under the bare hil¬ 
locks. 

The heavens above him prophesied that it would 
be a day of blistering heat. 

He rode on at a slow pace, sitting over on one 
side in the saddle; for he could not bear to put his 
sore foot in the stirrup. It did not bleed any more; 
it was swollen so badly that it was a tight fit for the 
leg of his trousers. 

Nero’s leg also was bad and swollen. When the 
day became warmer Niland was no longer able to 
bear the weight of him. Nero would have to man¬ 
age as best he could on his three good legs. Niland 
wondered how long he himself would have strength 


252 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


to keep in the saddle. Never before had he felt sc 
helpless. There was a constant hammering in his 
head, which otherwise felt so strangely empty. No 
matter in which direction he turned his aching eyes, 
he saw only naked and sun-baked hills and a merci¬ 
lessly clear sky with a scorching sun. The time 
dragged on; while the three—pony, dog, and man— 
dragged themselves painfully onward at a snail’s 
pace. 

The heat was cruel. With head hanging low the 
pony labored up and tottered down the hills. With 
head hanging low and with bent back, his broad- 
brimmed, gray hat pulled down low to shut out the 
glare, Niland reeled in his seat. And behind them 
limped poor Nero on three legs, and with his 
parched tongue hanging out nearly to the ground. 

By noon Niland was “all in.” They were then 
on the top of a hill which sloped gently down to all 
sides. The pony stopped of its own accord and 
sniffed the air in hopes of smelling water. 

The sudden halt caused Niland to lose his bal¬ 
ance. He tried to find the saddle-strap and hang 
on, but he could not do it. He fell, and in falling 
sprained his left wrist. Then for the first time in 
his life he lost consciousness. 

When he came to, the afternoon was half gone. 
His leg was now so badly swollen that he had to 
take his knife and rip his trousers in order to loosen 
the bandage. The wrist also was swollen and sore. 
At his side stood Nero with tongue hanging as low 
as the drooping tail. 


NERO 


253 


The pony was no longer in sight. No doubt it 
had gone away to look for water. 

Niland had never been in such sore straits. He 
looked about him, and saw only the same bare hills, 
the endless desert, and the same cloudless sky. 

Not far from where he lay was a sort of ledge 
with a faint suggestion of a cave. There was 
shadow, for the ledge faced the north. With a 
painful effort he crawled over to the place. He at 
once felt better. Now, if he only had some water; 
only some few drops of water. He knew that there 
was none to be had; he could only think of it and 
wish for it. His head was hot with fever. How 
much water he had so often wasted! He would 
never do it again. After this he would be very 
careful to avoid such wicked waste. 

Nero lay down at his side. Niland patted his 
head and pitied him. The dog also suffered, and 
needed water. After a time Niland stretched him¬ 
self on the ground, in such a position that he could 
see the hills and the heavens. The pain in his foot 
w T as becoming less severe. 

Suddenly it struck him as surpassing strange that 
things happen so fast and so unexpectedly. Only 
yesterday he had food and water—an abundance 
of water. And today; well, he did not want food, 
he was not hungry; but water—water. 

Many strange thoughts came to him as he was 
lying thus, with his eyes sometimes open and some¬ 
times closed; things forgotten for many years; 
memories of his childhood. And the thoughts al- 


254 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


ways led to a fine spring of water, a clear rivulet 
with green trees casting a cool shadow. 

Great heavens, what a deal of water he had seen 
in his life. And he had wasted it recklessly, idiot¬ 
ically. 

It struck him as strange that people did not drink 
more water; they must be very foolish. 

The sun, blood-red and unnaturally big, sank to 
the edge of the horizon. He could now look it 
straight in the face without blinking. It was like a 
great sea of fire, with enormous waves of flaming 
fire rising and sinking. 

Then the horizon began to clip the lower edge of 
it. Now only the upper half was left, now only the 
upper rim; and now it was all gone. 

But the heavens where the sun had been were still 
bright with many colors; awe-inspiring contrast to 
the prairie, over which the shadows of night were 
falling fast. 

The light was slow to fade out of the western 
sky. Some flecks of white and gold-rimmed clouds 
drifted leisurely in the gathering gloom; then the 
light of them also went out. Instead a big star 
shone out in the southwest. Dark night was come. 

Nero rolled himself together right by his master’s 
head. Niland took off his coat and used it as a 
blanket. He must sleep; he was deadly tired. 

He did fall asleep, but only for a moment. He 
slept by fits and starts. Sometimes he woke up; 
and sometimes he was awakened by the howling of 
a coyote, or it may be by the melancholy hoot of 
an owl out of the great stillness. 


NERO 


255 


A very gentle breeze fanned the face of the 
prairie. 

Some time in the night a coyote came so near to 
Niland that he could see the glitter of its eyes over 
among the tufts of heather. Instinctively he drew 
his revolver, and without getting up he pointed it 
straight between the two eyes of the beast. But 
he did not shoot. A new thought presented itself 
to him. Why in the name of all that’s inflammable 
should he destroy this life to no purpose? Did not 
this coyote have as good a right as he to live? 
Possibly he himself was near the end. The Lord 

only knew—if help did not come soon it-was 

this to be the finish? Was he like so many another 
desert rat to die as lonely as he had lived? What 
would become of his dead body? His thoughts con¬ 
tinued to follow this dreary road. Who would find 
his sunbaked bones? He wondered whether Nero 
slept, or whether it was the pain in the foot which 
made the dog so indifferent to everything. 

In the cool night his thirst did not torture him 
as much as had been the case during the hot day. 

For hours he lay looking up at the stars. How 
numberless they were, and how near they seemed 
to be! Then he closed his eyes and slept from sheer 
exhaustion. 

When he next opened his eyes the land was bathed 
in sunshine. From where he lay he could not see 
the sun; but the slant of the shadows told him that 
it must have been up a couple of hours. 

He looked about for the dog; but it was gone. 

Had even Nero deserted him? Was he now ab- 



256 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


solutely alone with his helplessness in these illimit¬ 
able wilds? He could hardly believe it; Nero was 
not that kind of a dog. He put the two fingers 
into his mouth and whistled. The whistle was not 
as shrill as he had been able to make it when well; 
but still it went pretty far out into the desert. 

No sooner had the sound died out than he heard 
another sound which made his blood run cold; a 
sound which all knew and feared, the clatter of a 
rattlesnake. And at the same time he felt some¬ 
thing cold and clammy move over his wounded foot 
and over his bare flesh where his trousers had been 
ripped open. He did not move; hardly dared to 
draw his breath. When the snake no longer moved, 
Niland slightly raised his head to look at the rep¬ 
tile. It was a monster; about four feet long and 
two or three inches in diameter. He saw the long, 
flattened head, the black and glittering eyes. And 
he saw the tail with these rings—looking something 
like celluloid—which cause the rattle. There were 
nine rings, and a button at the end—one ring, it is 
claimed, for each year of the snake’s life 

But as he saw this he saw also something else; 
something that set his heart going again. Nero 
came running as fast as he could on his three feet. 
He came straight to his master and sniffed at his 
face. Niland dared not stir, nor say anything. 

Nero had not noticed the snake till it announced 
its presence by rattling as a protest against being 
disturbed. 

During the dog’s puppyhood Niland had tried 
to teach him never to have any dealings with a rat- 


NERO 


257 


tier. But the dog had a too stubborn nature; in 
this matter as in others he had gone his own way. 
And now for the first time Niland was thankful 
for the dog’s obstinacy. 

Another dog would have begun to bark and so 
goad the snake into striking. Nero knew better ; 
he had had experience with snakes. He approached 
it with a low growl, with the hair of his neck stand¬ 
ing on end and with a snarl which bared his strong 
fangs. 

The snake raised its head, hissed and struck; but 
the dog had bounded to one side. 

Niland watched the scene with deep anxiety. He 
saw how the snake unclamped its jaws all the way 
back to the neck. He saw the incredibly rapid dart¬ 
ing back and forth of the forked tongue in that 
dreadful mouth; and the two coal-black eyes glitter¬ 
ing like polished pearls. Again and again the snake 
struck at Nero, but did not reach him. 

Of course Nero was not as quick as when he had 
four good legs. He watched and waited. 

Whenever the snake drew the head back after an 
abortive strike the dog always was close by. Niland, 
looking on, was afraid that the snake in its fury 
might strike at the nearest object in which it could 
bury its fangs. He wanted to make an end of it; 
so when the snake drew its hissing head back after 
the next fruitless strike, Niland whispered: “At 
him, Nero.” 

The dog obeyed. Quick as a flash he tried, as 
he had often done before, to lay hold on the snake’s 


258 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


neck. But the snake was equally quick. It struck 
again, and wounded Nero in the jaw. 

This was its last strike; for in the next moment 
Nero caught it just back of the head, and with his 
sharp teeth severed the head from the body. 

Niland examined the dog’s wound. It showed 
merely as a tiny red spot on the gums; but Niland 
knew how dangerous it was. 

So he tried the only remedy at hand. He turned 
back the upper lip of the dog, and then bent down 
and tried to suck the poison out of the wound. But 
when he had done this as well as he could, the jaw 
of the dog was already somewhat swollen. 


CHAPTER TWELVE 


FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 

'T^HERE was but one chance for Niland, and that 
was to send the dog for help. But how to do 
it? How was he to make the dog understand? 

The watering-place on the road to town was 
the one place at which he might hope to find help 
People coming or going usually stopped at that 
point to rest themselves and their horses. 

The place could not be far away. If persuaded 
to go in that direction, the dog would, no doubt, 
soon smell water and make haste to reach it. 

Niland called the dog; and, pointing in what he 
took to be the right direction, he said: “Nero, go 
far away over there.” 

Nero could see nothing over there which his mas¬ 
ter might want. Niland put out his hand: “Go, 
Nero; go.” 

Nero went some steps, and then stopped and 
looked about him. 

“Go on, far away, my good Nero.” And Niland 
again pointed out over the prairie. The dog went 
some steps farther, and again stopped to look in all 
directions. 

Niland continued to wave his hand and encour¬ 
age the dog to go on. 

So the dog went on and stopped, and went on 


260 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


again, until he reached the top of the next hill. 
There he stood still as not knowing what to do. 
He turned away as if to go on whenever Niland 
gave the signal; but then thought better of it, and 
stood looking back at his master, whom he seemed 
unable to persuade himself to leave. 

Finally, after much waving of the hand and shout¬ 
ing, which nearly exhausted Niland’s last ounce of 
strength, he saw the dog limp away and disappear 
among the hillocks of the heather. 

Niland remained lying there without the strength 
to move. The heat was by this time very trying. 
He examined his leg. The flesh near the wound 
was now a dark red. Then his thoughts followed 
the dog. 

Would he meet anyone before being overcome by 
the poison? In spite of the attempt to draw it out 
there would be some poison left in the wound. It 
was a rare thing for a dog to survive such a bite; 
tho a man might if he were strong and healthy, and 
especially if he had been able at once to take some 
antidote. 

He 1 felt a chill at the thought of that snake. If 
it had struck at him his chance for life would hardly 
be worth trading on. 

Now, if the dog should fall in with some men, 
would they understand what he wanted of them? 
And if not, what then? If the dog should die on 
the way, Niland’s hour would soon come. 

Should any people come this way, they would 
need some beacon to tell them where he was. By 
a severe tax on his remaining strength he managed 


NERO 


261 


to crawl out into the heather, gather some of it into 
a pile and set it on fire. 

A thin column of smoke ascended straight up into 
the still air. 

After a time a dog was seen to come limping on 
three feet, followed by a man on horseback, who 
was towing Topsy behind him. They reached Ni- 
land; and the man proved to be his friend the old 
trapper. The dog had set out straight for the 
water, as all animals would, and had found the trap¬ 
per resting at the watering-place on his way back 
to his lonely home after one of his weeks of dissipa¬ 
tion in town. 

The old man had seen Topsy with her saddle on, 
and had suspected that something was wrong. He 
was sure of it when Nero also came limping to the 
place. 

The gums of Nero were so swollen that his teeth 
were exposed. He now lay down near his master. 
His breathing was difficult, and it was plainly to be 
seen that he was dying. After a half hour Nero 
died with his head resting in Niland’s lap. 

The trapper dug a grave on the slope of the sun¬ 
baked hill, and Nero was buried without further 
ceremony. But no more honest tears have ever 
been wept at any grave than those shed by Niland 
at the grave of his faithful dog. 

Nero had twice that day saved his master’s life, 
and had given his own in doing it. 

He had always been different from the usual run 
of dogs. He had chosen his own manner of life, 
and it had been a life of many adventures. He had 


262 


UNDER WESTERN SKIES 


devoted his time to the service of his master when 
not engaged in escapades or in fights with the ani¬ 
mals that he loved or hated. 

And now he was dead; and the deep tones of 
his big voice would never again answer the call of 
the coyotes at the going down of the sun. 

Never again would the lean and strong body 
chase a rabbit over the plain. Never would the 
bright and intelligent eyes look again at Niland, as 
they so often had done during the lonely watches. 
And now he was lost to the one man whom he had 
known and loved best. 

He was buried on the prairie which had been his 
home; in the soil and under the heavens which were 
the only soil and heavens he had known. The coy¬ 
otes will continue to sing and howl above his grave, 
but he will not hear them. 

When spring comes again it may be that his mate, 
whom he set free in order that she might bring forth 
her young outside of prison, will sing her love-songs 
to him in the moonlit nights; she may seek for him 
and call to him from the hills down toward the river. 

But poor Nero will not be there, and will not 
answer. 

So she will go her way to find another mate, and 
Nero will for all time be forgotten. 


FINIS 






































































































































































































































